•r.''/^:"-jiv>* 


•:^>< 


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ol  ^^^^  ®h^^J^|}fa/  ^ 


PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


6'/i^^: 


BL  2775  .G73  P4  1879 

Perry,  John  T. 

Sixteen  saviours  or  one? 


■.i^f  Vfi'' .'  ■   .■■■•..     •  ■ 


;':^^ 


Sixteen  Sayiours  or  One? 


THE   GOSPELS    NOT  BRAHMANIC. 


JOHN    T. "PERRY. 


"We  are  no  Brachmans,  or  Indian  Gymnosophists,  dwellers  in  woods 
remote  from  the  affairs  of  life.  We  know  that  our  duty  is  to  give  thanks 
to  God,  the  Lord  and  the  Creztor ."  —Tertullian. 


CINCINNATI:  | 

Peter  G.  Thomson,   179  Vine  Street. 

1879. 


COPYRIGHT 

1879. 

PETER    G.   THOMSON. 


tt  tttt|  ^[n^r: 


DEos  at  tfie  QQe  of  more  tfian  nincfij  ijcars,  stiff  retains  fiis  interest  in  t^e 
Qrcat  questions  lufiirfi  f^car  upon  man's  nature  and  destiny;  Ifiis  oofume  is 
affectionatcfy  and  gratcfuffy  inscrikd. 


INTRODUCTION, 


OF  making  of  books  there  is  no  end,  and  every  addition  to 
the  already  overgrown  mass  of  Hterature  should  have  ample 
justification.  This  little  volume  claims  no  exemption  from  the 
responsibility  because  of  its  diminutive  size,  but  trusts  that  its 
subject  and  purpose  will  sufficiently  excuse  its  appearance. 

The  skepticism  prevalent  among  well-read  people,  may  be  as 
liostile  to  revelation  as  the  infidelity  of  eighty  or  one  hundred  years 
ago,  but  it  is  more  decorous.  It  alleges  historical  criticism  and 
scientific  discovery  as  the  bases  of  its  conclusions,  and  rarely  gets 
into  a  passion.  Yet  the  iconoclastic  school  of  Paine  and  Voltaire  is 
not  dead.  It  has  only  found  new  pupils.  The  earliest  opponents 
of  the  Bible,  though  radicals  in  theory,  were  aristocrats  in  practice. 
Anthony  Collins,  perhaps  the  ablest  of  the  English  deists  of  the 
first  half  of  the  last  century,  always  sent  his  servants  to  church,  that 
they  might  not  rob  him.  Voltaire  denounced  with  severity 
Holbach's  "Good  Sense,"  because  it  taught  atheism  to  valets  and 
chambermaids.  It  was  not  until  Paine,  a  man  of  the  people,  wrote 
in  a  strictly  popular  manner,  that  the  English  masses  were  provided 
with  a  scheme  of  unbelief  suited  to  their  tastes  and  comprehension. 


vi  Introductiox 


During  the  quarter  of  a  century  following  our  Revolution,  the 
influence  of  the  ' '  Age  of  Reason"  was  paramount  among  the  radical 
democracy  of  New  York.  Dr.  John  ^^\  Francis  has  given  in  his 
^'Old  New  York"  a  fearful  picture  of  the  demoralization  of  the  period. 
Elihu  Palmer,  a  blind  man  and  apostate  minister,  lectured  regularly 
to  a  chosen  circle,  by  which  he  was  regarded  as  infallible,  and 
second  only  to  the  great  Thomas.  In  his  "Principles  of  Nature"  he 
has  left  behind  him  a  summary  of  his  deistical  scheme. 

Thirty  years  later,  the  lectures  of  Frances  Wright  and  Robert 
Dale  Owen,  and  their  paper,  the  J^ree  Enquirer,  spread  atheism 
among  the  working  people  of  New  York.  Benjamin  Offen,  a 
*' philosophical"  shoemaker,  also  lectured  at  Tammany  Hall.  The 
late  Gilbert  Vale  united  the  callings  of  a  mathemetical  instrument 
maker  and  publisher  of  skeptical  works,  and  about  the  same  time 
Abner  Kneeland  started  the  hivestigator  at  Boston.  "Liberal" 
papers  were  also  established  in  other  places,  but  they  all,  and  the 
Enquirer  as  well,  soon  died  out.  The  movement  seemed  to  have 
culminated.  The  Investigator  alone  maintained  a  somewhat  sickly 
existence,  and  its  publisher  issued  a  list  of  skeptical  works  at  very 
high  prices.  Judging  from  the  persistency  with  which  old  editions 
were  kept  on  sale  the  demand  was  not  very  large. 

Recently  a  change  for  the  worse  has  taken  place.  Infidel  Spirit- 
uaHsm  has  allied  itself  to  out-and-out  materialism,  and  its  advocates 
are  pushing  the  same  books  and  manifesting  entire  sympathy  in  the 
anti-chrisdan   warfare   of  the  successors   of  Kneeland.     There  are 


Introduction. 


now  at  least  three  houses  in  New  York,  two  in  Boston  and  one  in 
Chicago,  which  pubUsh  long  lists  of  books  and  tracts  assailing  the 
Christian  faith,  the  divine  existence,  and  often  the  sanctity  of 
marriage.  Some  of  these  publications  have  passed  through  numerous 
editions,  and  all  are  thoroughly  adapted  to  shake  the  belief  of  those 
who  are  unfamiliar  with  the  questions  discussed.  Their  authors  are 
either  persons,  who  having  no  reputation  to  lose,  are  utterly 
unscrupulous  in  their  statements,  or  men  who,  having  prejudged  the 
case,  are  incapable  of  fairly  weighing  evidence.  Anything  that  will 
serve  their  purpose  in  telling  against  Christianity  is  good  enough  for 
them.  Writing  in  this  spirit,  it  is  not  strange  that  their  productions 
should  appear  very  weighty  to  the  unsophisticated.  They  never  fail 
to  make  out  a  "  good  case." 

The  great  majority  of  these  effusions  are  ^not  read  by  what  is 
known  as  the  reading  public,  and  many  of  their  special  objections 
and  assertions  are  not  noticed  in  the  standard  volumes  on  the 
evidences  of  Christianity.  For  about  fifty  years  Robert  Taylor's 
Diegesis  has  been  published  in  Boston«with  the  advertisement  that  it 
is  deemed  "unanswerable  in  fact  and  argument,"  yet  it  has 
received  litde  attention.  The  Rev.  George  E.  Ellis  reviewed  it  in 
The  Christian  Examiner  over  forty  years  ago.  The  paper  is 
excellent  as  far  as  it  goes,  but  hardly  sufficient  as  an  answer  to  a 
work,  very  dangerous,  because  extremely  dishonest,  and  so  be- 
sprinkled with  Greek  and  Hebrew  as  to  wear  the  appearance  of 
profound  scholarship.     It  will  not  do  to  say  that  noticing  books  of 


Introduction. 


this  kind  serves  to  advertise  them.  They  are  already  advertised, 
and  are  sowing  the  seeds  of  unbeHef,  communism  and  recklessness  of 
all  kinds  among  large  numbers  of  voters.  If  clergymen  and  philan- 
thropists wish  to  know  all  the  reasons  for  non-attendance  at  church 
among  the  working  classes,  they  will  do  well  to  inquire  into  the 
circulation  of  books  and  pamphlets  unknown  to  them,  yet  filled 
with  deadly  poison. 

Some  time  ago  my  attention  was  called  to  the  works  of  Mr. 
Kersey  Graves,  a  skeptical  spiritualist  of  Richmond,  Indiana.  I 
first  heard  of  their  wide  circulation  at  the  East.  As  they  had  passed 
through  several  editions,  I  did  not  feel  that  I  ran  any  risk  of  giving 
them  undue  publicity  by  commenting  upon  them.  It  seemed  best 
to  make  my  strictures  known  in  the  author's  own  locality.  My 
friend  Mr.  Daniel  Surface  of  the  Richmond  Telegram,  kindly  gave 
me  ample  space  in  his  columns,  and  I  reviewed  at  length  the  two 
volumes  of  Mr.  Graves  which  have  gained  the  widest  circulation. 

He  repHed,  and  I  rejoined.  The  controversy  then  closed,  not 
because  Mr.  Graves  had  no  desire  to  prolong  it,  but  because  the 
publisher  of  the  Telegra7n  thought  the  subject  had  been  exhausted. 
The  three  articles  make  up  this  volume.  The  public  care  of  course 
very  little  about  Mr.  Graves  and  myself,  but  I  have  chosen  to  repro- 
duce the  discussion,  with  no  changes  save  the  correction  of  typo- 
graphical errors,  the  amendment  of  a  few  hastily  written  sentences, 
and  the  addition  of  a  note  or  two,  in  my  own  letters.  I  have  made 
no  alteration  in  Mr.  Graves',  defense,  but  have  inserted  two  or  three 


Introduction.  ix 


shcrt  communications  in  which  he  corrected  or  explained  what  he 
had  said  before.  The  reader  will  thus  be  able  to  see  what  each  side 
has  to  urge  for  itself.  It  is  not  as  a  discussion  however,  that  I  ask 
attention  to  the  book.  I  think  I  can  claim  first,  that  the  main  argu- 
ments of  Taylor's  Diegesis,  Volney's  Ruins,  Higgins'  Anacalypsis, 
and  Jacolliot's  Bible  in  India,  as  well  as  those  of  Mr.  Graves  himself, 
are  fully  and  fairly  met ;  second,  that  the  materials  here  gathered 
must  be  sought  elsewhere  in  more  than  one  authority  and  are  not  to 
be  found  in  the  ordinarily  accessible  defenses  of  the  Bible.  The 
positions  refuted  are  those  which  compose  the  stronghold  of  the 
infidel  working-men  throughout  the  country,  and  hence  deserve  the 
special  attention  of  the  clergy.  Furthermore,  some  of  them  are 
gaining  a  revived  acceptance  among  writers  of  more  eminence  than 
the  last  named,  and  a  new  edition  of  the  Anacalypsis,  which  has 
long  been  out  of  print,  is  announced. 

1  make  no  pretensions  to  scholarship ;  I  have  simply  endeavored 
to  study  my  subject  carefully  and  thoroughly,  and  honestly  to  record 
my  conclusions.  The  field  of  comparative  mythology  is  a  vast  one, 
and  no  single  person  can  hope  to  view,  much  less  to  till  its  entire 
surface.  I  have  been  compelled  through  lack  of  space  to  confine 
myself  to  one  or  two  vital  issues.  If  I  have  shown  that  Christ  is  no 
copy  of  Krishna,  and  Christianity  no  modification  of  any  of  the  old 
ethnic  beliefs,  I  have  not  been  unconscious  of  the  many  curious 
ramifications,  survivals  of  a  j^rimitive  revelation,  or  proofs  of  the 
spiritual  unity  of  all  men — which  unite  the  faiths  of  widely  separated 

2 


Introduction. 


nations.  I  have  glanced  at  these  in  passing,  but  they  are  much 
more  satisfactorily,  though  briefly,  set  forth  in  a'  note  from  Professor 
Swing,  which  will  be  found  in  the  appendix.  My  authorities  are 
sufficiently  credited  in  the  context.  I  wish,  however,  to  acknowl- 
edge special  obligations  to  Hardwick's  "Christ  and  other 
Masters,"  a  work  remarkable  for  its  keen  analysis  of  the  differences 
as  well  as  resemblances  between  Christianity  and  the  ethnic  faiths. 
Cardinal  Wiseman's  "Lectures  on  the  Connection  between  Science 
and  Revealed  Religion,"  are  also  no  less  valuable  in  regard  to 
certain  essential  points,  because  some  of  their  statements  respecting 
natural  science  have  become  antiquated  during  the  more  than  forty 
years,  which  have  elapsed  since  their  delivery. 

No  one  can  be  more  conscious  of  the  defects  of  my  work  than 
myself.  I  could  plead  in  extenuation  the  unceasing  demands  of  a 
daily  newspaper,  yet  I  have  yielded  to  the  request  of  many  friends 
and  readers  that  I  should  incorporate  my  articles  in  a  permanent 
form.  I  hope  their  expectations  and  my  desire  of  the  good  thus  to 
to  be  attained  will  not  be  disappointed. 

Gazette  Office.  J.   T.   P. 

Cincinnati^  April  15,  1879. 


{( 


The  Sixteen  Crucified  Saviors," 


Mr.  KERSEY  GRAVES  AS  A  THEOLOGIAN  AND  SCHOLAR. 


To  the  Editor  of  the  Richmo?id  Telegram: 
INTRODUCTORY. 

The  controversy  on  the  evidences  of  Christianity  has  assumed 
various  forms.  Sometimes  one  position  has  been  assailed  by  skep- 
tics, and  sometimes  another.  Each  campaign  has  had  its  pecuHar 
tactics.  While  borrowing  from  those  Avhich  preceded  it  whatever 
seemed  serviceable,  those  weapons  that  had  proved  valueless  were 
thrown  away.  Just  now  German  rationalists  and  their  English  and 
American  imitators  are  chiefly  anxious  to  prove  that  the  Old  and 
New  Testament  records  are  not  the  work  of  their  reputed  authors, 
but  of  a  sufficiently  later  origin  to  allow  time  for  mythical  and 
legendary  narratives  to  grow  up.  There  are  others  who  place  their 
reliance  on  the  alleged  discrepancies  of  revelation  and  science, 
forgetting  that  natural  philosophers  have  changed  ground  in 
hundreds  of  particulars  within  the  last  quarter  of  a  century,  and 
that  the  shifting  process  has  by  no  means  ceased. 


12  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


The  people  of  Richmond  are  pretty  generally  aware,  I  suppose, 
that  their  fellow  citizen,  Mr.  Kersey  Graves,  published  a  few  years 
ago  a  volume  with  the  surprising  title  of  "The  World's  Sixteen 
Crucified  Saviors,  or  Christianity  Before  Christ,-'  of  which 
the  fourth  edition  now  lies  before  me.  It  purports  to  contain,  ' '  new, 
startling,  and  extraordinary  revelations  in  religious  history,  which 
disclose  the  oriental  origin  of  all  the  doctrines,  principles,  precepts 
and  miracles  of  the  Christian  New  Testament,  and  furnishing  a  key 
for  unlocking  many  of  its  sacred  mysteries,  besides  comprising  the 
history  of  sixteen  heathen  crucified  gods."  In  an  ''Address  to  the 
Clergy,"  prefixed  to  the  main  work,  he  informs  the  teachers  of  the 
Christian  faith  that  ''The  divine  claims  of  your  (their)  religion  are 
^one— all  swept  away  by  the  'logic  of  history,'  and  nullified  by  the 
demonstrations  of  science."  He  then  repeats  in  detail  various 
alleged  coincidences  between  the  scriptural  records  of  the  birth,  life, 
and  death  of  Christ  and  the  so-called  saviours,  who,  he  says,  preceded 
Him ;  the  inference,  of  course,  being  that  the  claims  of  all  are 
equally  true  and  equally  false,  since  the  "primary  constituent 
elements  and  properties  of  human  nature  being  essentially  the  same 
in  all  countries,  and  all  centuries,  and  the  feeling  called  Religion 
being  a  spontaneous  outgrowth  of  the  human  mind,  the  coincidence 
would  naturally  produce  similar  feefings,  similar  thoughts,"  &c.  He 
further  says : 

^"Researches  into  oriental  history  reveal  the  remarkable  fact  that  the 
stories  of  incarnate  Gods  answering  to  and  resembling  the  miraculous  character 
of  Jesus  Christ  have  been  prevalent  in  most,  if  not  all,   the  principal  religious 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  15 


heathen  nations  of  antiquity ;  ( were  there  any  irreligious  ones  ? )  and  the 
accounts  and  narratives  of  some  of  these  deific  incarnations  bear  such  a  strik- 
ing example  to  that  of  the  Christian  Savior — not  only  in  their  general  features, 
but  in  some  cases  in  the  most  minute  details,  from  the  legend  of  the 
immaculate  conception,  to  that  of  the  crucifixion,  and  subsequent  ascension 
into  heaven — that  one  might  almost  be  mistaken  for  the  other." 

If  he  has  demonstrated,  as  he  claims  to  have  done,  the  fore- 
going positions,  any  further  assault  on  Christianity  would  be  very 
much  like  kicking  a  corpse,  yet  we  fancy  that  Mr.  Cxraves  is  not 
quite  as  confident,  on  sober  second  thought,  as  he  was  while  the 
glow  of  authorship  was  fresh,  for  he  has  just  favored  the  public  with 
a  second  effusion  of  the  same  general  character,  and  involving,  we 
must  say,  quite  a  number  of  repetitions.  The  new  volume  is  styled, 
"The  Bible  of  Bibles,  or  Twenty-seven  Divine  Revelations," 
containing  a  descripdon  of  twenty-seven  Bibles,  and  an  exposidon 
(we  suppose  he  means  exposure)  of  two  thousand  biblical  errors  in 
Science,  History,  Morals,  Religion  and  General  Events;  also,  a 
delineation  of  the  character  of  the  principal  personages  of  the 
Chrisdan  Bible,  and  an  examinadon  of  their  doctrines." 

The  first  of  the  two  books  is  the  more  important,  but  a  review 
of  its  contents  will  involve  an  inquiry  into  the  andquity  and  merits 
of  the  chief  heathen  "bibles,"  while  the  author's  estimate  of  the 
character  and  evidences  of  the  Hebrew  and  Chrisdan  scriptures, 
being  the  same  in  both  volumes,  may  be  considered  without  exclu- 
sive reference  to  either. 

Before  bet^innin^  on  the  "Sixteen  Saviors,"  Mr.  Graves  names 


14  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


thirty-five  persons,  historical  and  mythological,  who  have  received 
or  claimed  divine  honors.  Among  these  are  Salivahana,  of 
Bermuda!  Though  the  word  we  have  italicized  is  twice  repeated, 
we  will  hold  the  proof  reader  responsible  for  relegating  an  East 
Indian  divinity  to  the  new  world.  Mohammed  is  also  in  the  list, 
though  he  never  pretended  to  be  more  than  a  prophet.  Ixion  is  set 
down  by  Mr.  Graves  as  a  Roman,  though  he  appears  in  the  classics 
as  a  fabulous  king  of  Thessaly,  who  was  tied  to  a  wheel  in  Hades 
for  being  too  intimate  with  Juno.  As  he  was  a  murderer  before  he 
became  a  libertine  in  the  circles  of  Olympus  he  is  certainly  a  queer 
candidate  for  supernatural  dignity. 

THE  SIXTEEN  "SAVIORS." 

But  we  will  i^ass  to  the  sixteen  who,  our  author  asserts,  were 
believed  to  have  been  crucified  in  or  about  the  years  affixed  to  their 
names.  They  are  Chrishna,  of  India,  1200  B.  C. ;  the  Hindoo 
Sakia,  600  B.  C. ;  Thammuz,  of  Syria,  1160  B.  C. ;  Wittoba,  of  the 
Telengonese,  552  B.  C. ;  lao,  of  Nepaul,  622  B.  C. ;  Hesus,  of  the 
Celtic  Druids,  834  B.  C;  Quexalcote,  of  Mexico,  587  B.  C. ; 
Quirinus,  of  Rome,  506  B.  C. ;  (Aeschylus)  Prometheus,  crucified 
.547  B.  C. ;  Thulis,  of  Egypt,  1700  B.  C. ;  Indra  of  Thibet,  725 
B.  C;  Alcestos  (we  suppose  Alcestis  is  meant),  of  Euripides,  600 
B.  C. ;  Atys,  of  Phrygia,  1170B.  C;  Crite,  ofChaldea,  200  B.  C; 
Bali,  of  Orissa,  725  B.  C;  Mithra,  of  Persia,   600  B.  C. 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  15 


After  reading  the  astounding  catalogue,  the  reader  will  natur- 
ally inquire  whether  the  statements  are  true?  We  are  afraid  we 
shall  have  to  reduce  the  list  very  materially  before  we  consider 
certain  theories  not  original  with  Mr.  Graves,  upon  which  all  his 
conclusions  are  based.  Sakia,  who  is  no  other'than  Buddha,  must 
first  be  dismissed.  He  is  a  historical  character,  a  reformer  and 
founder  of  an  important  sect.  He  never  was  crucified,  however, 
but  died  a  natural  death  at  the  age  of  about  eighty,  four  hundred 
years  or  more  before  Christ.  The  earliest  canon  of  his  writings  was 
not  formed  until  a  century  and  a  half  after  his  death.  None  of  the 
miraculous  stories  concerning  his  birth  can  be  traced  back  to  a 
period  preceding  the  Christian  era.  The  oldest  writings  concern- 
ing him  extant — there  are  two  sets,  the  southern  and  northern,  of 
which  the  latter  are  the  more  marvelous — are  subsequent  to  the 
Christian  era,  in  their  present  form  at  least. 

Thammuz,  or  the  Tammuz,  is  an  Eastern  version  of  the 
mythical  Greek  character  Adonis,  the  beloved  of  Venus,  who  was 
killed  by  a  boar,  not  by  crucifixion. 

Hesus,  sometimes  called  Esus,  not  Eros,  the  god  of  love,  as 
Mr.  Graves  prints  it,  was  the  Celtic  war  god,  the  counterpart  of  the 
Roman  Mars,  and,  as  some  affirm,  the  chief  divinity,  whose  symbol 
was  the  oak. 

Quexalcote,  or  Quetzalcoad,  as  Prescott  spells  his  name,  was 
the  Mexican  god  of  the  air.  During  his  residence  on  earth,  it  is 
said,  he  instructed  the  natives  in  the  use   of  metals,  in  agriculture, 


i6  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

and  in  the  arts  of  government.  From  some  cause,  not  explained,, 
the  historian  of  the  Conquest  of  Mexico,  tells  us  "Quetzalcoatl 
incurred  the  wrath  of  one  of  the  principal  gods  and  was  compelled 
to  abandon  the  country.  On  his  way  he  stopped  at  the  city  of 
Cholula,  where  a  temple  was  dedicated  to  his  worship,  the  mossy 
ruins  of  which  still  form  one  of  the  most  interesting  relics  of 
antiquity  in  Mexico.  When  he  reached  the  shores  of  the  Mexican 
gulf,  he  took  leave  of  his  followers,  promising  that  he  and  his 
descendants  would  revisit  them  hereafter,  and  then  entering  his 
wizard  skiff,  made  of  serpents'  skins,  embarked  on  the  great  ocean 
for  the  fabled  land  of  Tlapallan." 

Quirinus,  of  Rome,  is  only  our  old  friend  Romulus,  under  the 
title  given  him  on  his  deification  after  his  mysterious  disappearance. 
The  name  also  belongs  to  Mars,  his  reputed  father.  He  was  no 
more  a  savior  than  any  of  the  later  Roman  emperors  who  arrogated 
to  themselves  divine  honors. 

As  for  Thulis,  or  Zuhs,  of  Egypt,  whom  Mr.  Graves  makes  a 
saviour  about  the  time  that  Jacob  was  serving  T.aban,  we  are  told 
that  he  was  the  same  as  Apis,  the  sacred  bull  of  Memphis,  who  was 
sacrificed  if  he  reached  the  age  of  twenty-five  years,  though  it  was 
pretended  that  he  drowned  himself.  This  animal  could  hardly  be 
called  a  crucified  saviour,  though  he  was  supposed  to  be  glorified  by 
the  indwelling  of  Osiris.  The  biggist  bull,  however,  in  the  case,  is 
our  author's  assertion  that  from  the  name  Thulis  that  of  the  myster- 
ious  northern  island,  the  Ultima  Thule  was  derived !     Mr.  Graves 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  17 

may  be  a  theologian  and  philosopher,  but  he  is  not  "up"  in 
philology. 

''Alcestos,"  whom  he  would  have  us  believe  to  have  been  a 
female  saviour,  laid  down,  or  offered  to  lay  down  her  life  for  her 
husband,  when  told  by  an  oracle  that  he  could  never  be  cured  of  a 
disease  unless  one  of  his  friends  died  in  his  stead.  Some  accounts 
represent  her  as  rescued  at  the  last  instant  by  Hercules.  Alcestis 
or  Alceste,  as  she  is  sometimes  called,  is  the  heroine  of  a  drama  by 
Euripides,  and  of  a  modern  opera. 

Atys,  of  Phrygia,  was  a  shepherd  beloved  by  the  goddess 
Cybele.  She  made  him  a  priest,  imposing  on  him  a  vow  of 
celibacy.  This  he  violated,  and  being  made  delirious  by  the 
incensed  divinity,  castrated  himself. 

Crite,  of  Chaldea,  is  affirmed  by  an  imaginative  writer  from 
whom  our  author  has  derived  the  main  thread  of  his  work,  to  be  set 
forth  in  the  sacred  books  of  the  Chaldeans,  as  a  crucified  god,  a 
redeemer  and  atoning  offering,  etc.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  we 
have  found  no  mention  of  him  in  the  investigations  of  such  modern 
archaeologists  as  George  Smith,  nor  in  the  admirable  summary  of 
Babylonian  beliefs  and  history  in  the  latest  edition  of  the  Encyclo- 
psedia  Britannica. 

Wittoba,  an  incarnation  of  Vishnu,  is  the  same  as  Chrishna. 
Bali  is  another  of  the  divinities  with  which,  under  various  names 
later  Brahmanism  has  swarmed.  lao,  of  Nepaul,  who  Mr.  Graves 
thinks  may  have  been  the   original  of  the   Hebrew  Jehovah!    is 

3 


1 8  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


probably  one  of  the  Jins  or  deities  of  the  Jains,  a  heretical  sect  of 
Northern  India,  who  have  mingled  Buddhism  and  Brahmanism 
with  strange  conceits  of  their  own.  Indra,  of  Thibet,  is  a 
Buddhistic  transformation  of  Indra,  the  sky  god  of  early  Brahman- 
ism, and  later  the  personal  opponent  of  Chrishna.  Mr.  Graves  has 
cited  at  second  or  third  hand  the  reports  of  uncritical  mediaeval 
Christian  missionaries  concerning  these  latter  deities. 

Prometheus,  a  thoroughly  mythical  character,  who  was  nailed 
to  a  rock  on  Mt.  Caucasus — not  on  a  cross — where  a  vulture  was 
perpetually  to  feed  on  his  ever  growing  liver,  was  rescued  by 
Hercules,  after  thirty  years  of  torment.  He  is  an  interesting 
character,  but  it  is  hardly  fair  to  quote  a  dramatic  poet  of  the  fifth 
century  before  Christ,  as  authority  concerning  a  person  who,  if  he 
had  ever  lived  at  all,  must  have  flourished  at  least  a  thousand  years 
earlier.  We  have  thus  reduced  the  catalogue  to  Mithra  and 
Chrishna,  or  Krishna,  as  the  best  authorities  spell  the  name. 
With  them  we  shall  deal  later,  as  they,  especially  the  last  named, 
are  the  chief  dependence  of  Mr.  Graves,  and  the  school  of  writers 
of  whom  he  is  the  exponent. 

MR.    GRAVES'    SCHOLARSHIP. 

The  reader  has  already  been  furnished  with  some  interesting 
glimpses  of  Mr.  Graves'  scholastic  attainments,  and  it  is  only  just  to 
him,  as  well  to  the  public,  that  their  full  extent  should  be  known. 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  19 

He  himself  tells  us  in  the  introduction  to  the  ''Saviors"  that  'ignor- 
ance of  science  and  ignorance  of  history  are  the  two  great  bulwarks 
of  religious  error."  It  is  well,  therefore,  to  be  certain  that  our  guide 
is  thoroughly  conversant  with  the  paths  through  which  he  proposes 
to  lead  us,  in  urging  us  to  desert  the  well  trodden  road  of  old 
fashioned  beliefs.  It  certainly  does  not  inspire  confidence  to  find 
so  few  of  his  ' '  saviors "  answering  the  descrij^tion  he  gave  at 
the  start,  and  we  are  puzzled,  to  say  the  least,  by  further 
information  which  he  vouchsafes  us. 

What  must  one  think,  who  has  looked  over  the  plates  of  unintel- 
ligible hieroglyphics  in  Lord  Kingsborough's  Mexican  Antiquities, 
to  find  one  set  referred  to  as  if  it  were  a  printed  volume — as  an 
''ancient  work  called  Codex  Vaticanus,"  in  which  "the  immaculate 
■conception  is  spoken  of  as  part  of  the  history  of  Quexalcote,  the 
Mexican  Savior"?  Is  it  possible  that  Mr.  Graves  has  never  seen 
the  Codex,  or  the  great  work  in  which  it  is  reproduced  ? 

Again,  he  regards  Alcides  and  Hercules  as  two  different 
persons,  when  they  are  the  same.  In  another  place  he  refers  to 
Alcides  as  an  Egyptian,  and  Prometheus  as  a  Roman  god !  Are 
all  the  classical  writers  and  lexicographers  wrong,  or  has  Mr. 
Graves  been  corrected  by  "  spiritual"  influences  ? 

He  represents  Confucius  as  miraculously  born,  when,  in  truth, 
he  was  the  son  of  his  father's  second  marriage,  and  was  the  soberest 
of  matter-of-fact  men,  a  kind  of  Chinese  Ben  Franklin,  who  dis- 
couraged religious  enthusiasm,  taught  practical  morality  on  purely 


20  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


earthly  considerations,  and  died  very  unromantically  at  a  good  old 
age.  The  great  Jew  Maimonides  is  styled  Mamoides,  and  Ludwig 
Feuerbach,  whose  name  the  author  ought  to  know,  since  he 
professes  to  ([uote  him,  is  called  Mr.  Fleurbach.  It  is  very  care- 
less, if  not  very  dishonest,  to  claim  that  Herod  had  fourteen 
thousand  babes  massacred  at  Bethlehem,  or  more  strictly  to  assert 
that  that  number  perished,  if  Matthew  has  written  the  truth.  There 
were  not  anything  like  fourteen  thousand  men,  women  and  children, 
all  told,  in  Bethlehem  and  its  ''coasts."  The  village  was  a  little 
one,  and  a  dozen  children  under  two  years  old  would  be  a  fair 
estimate. 

But  his  errors  are  not  confined  to  surmises.  He  thus  garbles 
Gibbon:  "In  a  note  to  chapter  XV,  he  (Gibbon)  says,  'It  is 
probable  that  the  Therapeuts  (Essenes)  changed  their  name  to 
Christians,  as  some  writers  affirm,  and  adopted  some  new  articles 
of  faith."  Gibbon  really  says :  "  Basnage  *  "^^  "^  ''^  has 
examined  with  the  most  critical  accuracy  the  curious  treatise  of 
Philo,  which  describes  the  Therapeutse.  By  proving  that  it  was 
composed  as  early  as  the  time  of  Augustus,  Basnage  has  demon- 
strated, in  spite  of  Eusebius  (b  ii.  c  17)  and  a  crowd  of  modern 
Catholics,  that  the  Therapeut?e  were  neither  Christians  nor  Monks. 
It  still  remains  probable  that  they  changed  their  name,  preserved 
their  manners,  adopted  some  new  articles  of  faith,  and  gradually  be- 
came the  fathers  of  the  Egyptian  ascetics." 

On  page  62,  lao,  of  Nepaul,  appears  as  Jao  AVapaul,  a  god  cf 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic. 


Britain.  The  next  example  of  our  author's  inteUigence  is  very 
rich.  He  says  :  "We  will  first  hear  from  Colonel  Wiseman,  for  ten 
years  a  Christian  missionary  in  India."  Then  follows  a  quotation 
from  Cardinal  Wiseman's  lectures  on  Science  and  Religion ! 

I  was  surprised  that  Mr.  Graves  should  misrepresent  Gibbon, 
for  if  there  is  honor  among  thieves  there  surely  ought  to  be  fair 
dealing  between  skeptics.  Having  discovered  this  rule  disregarded, 
I  was  prepared  to  find  him  slandering  an  aposde.  We  are  coolly 
told  that  Paul,  in  Romans  iii.  7,  justifies  falsehood  when  he  says  : 
''If  the  truth  of  God  hath  more  abounded  through  my  lie  unto  his 
glory,  why  yet  am  I  also  judged  as  a  sinner?"  Why  does  not 
Mr.  Graves  quote  the  next  verse,  "  And  not  rather  (as  we  be 
slanderously  reported,  and  as  some  affirm  that  we  say)  '  Let  us  do 
evil,  that  good  may  come',  whose  damnation  is  just "  Are  mis- 
quotation and  perversion  among  the  methods  of  breaking  down 
the  "bulwarks  of  religious  error?" 

Occasionally  his  malice  gets  the  better  of  his  consistency.  On 
page  304  ("Saviors")  he  quotes  some  verses  in  eulogy  of  forgiveness 
from  the  "old  Persian  bible,"  which  say: 

"Forgive  thy  foes  nor  that  alone; 

Their  evil  deeds  with  good  repay : 
Fill  those  with  joy  who  leave  thee  none, 
And  kiss  the  hand  upraised  to  slay." 

To  this  he  adds : 
"The  Christian  Bible  would  be  searched  in  vain  to  find  a  moral  sentiment 
■or  precept  superior  to  this.     Certainly  it  is  the  loftiest  sentiment  of  kindness 


Sixteen  Saviours  or  One, 


toward  enemies  that  ever  issued  from  human  lips,  or  was  ever  penned  by- 
mortal  man.  And  yet  is  found  in  an  old  heathen  bible.  Think  of  '  kissing 
the  hand  upraised  to  slay.'  Never  was  love,  and  kindness,  and  forbearance- 
toward  enemies  more  sublimely  expressed  than  in  the  old  Persian  ballad." 

On  page  347,  he  talks  differently.  After  citing  the  text: 
"Love  your  enemies,"  he  adds: 

"Then  what  kind  of  feeling  should  we  cultivate  toward  friends?  And 
how  much  did  he  love  his  enemies  when  he  called  them  fools,  liars, 
hypocrites,  generation  of  vipers,  &c?  And  yet  he  is  held  up  as  'our'  example 
in  love,  meekness  and  forbearance.  But  no  man  ei'er  did  lot'e  an  enemy  ;  it  is  a 
moral  iinpossibilily,  as  much  so  as  to  loz<e  bitter ornauseating  foody 

The  italics  are  my  own.  The  charming  harmony  of  sentiment 
should  be  duly  credited  to  Mr.  Graves. 

Referring  to  resurrections,  we  are  informed  that  personages 
declared  by  the  author  to  be  Egyptian  gods,  "Tyndarus  and 
Hypolitus,  were  instances  of  this  kind,  both  (according  to  Julius) 
having  been  raised  from  the  dead."  Who  was  Julius?  Hippolytus, 
not  Hypolitus,  and  Tyndarus  were  both  personages  in  Grecian 
mythology ;  the  latter  being  the  father  of  Helen.  Mr.  Graves  may 
have  had  access  to  better  authority,  perhaps. 

We  have  also  the  very  novel  information,  on  the  alleged 
evidence  of  '-Col.  Hall  and  Dr.  Oliphant,"  that  "  no  drunkenness, 
no  fighting,  no  quarrelling,  no  thefts,  no  robberies,  no  rapes,  no 
fornication,  no  domestic  feuds  or  broils,  and  no  fraudulent  dealing 
take  place  in  Japan."  I  should  prefer  to  examine  these  authorities 
for  myself  rather  than  take  Mr.    Graves'  word  for  it.      If  they  say 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  23 

any  thing  of  the  kind,  they  contradict  other  writers,  and  what  the 
mails  so  frequently  bring  in  the  way  of  accounts  of  rebellions, 
assassinations  and  wide-spread  immorality.  So  much  for  the 
"Sixteen  Crucified  Saviors,"  and  the  author's  learning.  We  have 
by  no  means  exhausted  the  fountain,  for  there  remains  an  abundant 
supply  in  both  volumes,  to  some  of  which  we  shall  apply  analytic 
tests  in  other  connections.  We  have  made  it  very  evident, 
however,  that  Mr.  Graves  is  neither  well  informed  nor  honest.  We 
shall  next  proceed  to  examine  the  trustworthiness  of  the  authorities 
on  which  he  has  principally  relied. 

HIS    AUTHORITIES. 

A  casual  glance  at  both  books,  especially  the  "Saviors,"  will 
show,  that,  with  much  trash  and  many  repetitions,  they  contain  a 
good  deal  of  curious  learning,  "  important  if  true."  Where  did  the 
author  get  it?  The  blunders  we  know  are  his  own,  but  all  is 
not  stupidity.  He  has  been  candid  enough  to  say  regarding  the 
"  Saviors,"  and  the  remark  is  in  part  applicable  to  the  "  Bibles," 
"  Many  of  the  most  important  facts,  were  derived  from  Sir  Godfrey 
Higgins'  Anacalypsis,  a  work  as  valuable  as  it  is  rare."  He  would 
not  have  exaggerated  had  he  admitted  that  the  bulk  of  his  data  was 
borrowed  from  this  source.  Had  he  been  more  exact,  however,  he 
would  not  have  given  Mr.  Higgins  the  prefix  "  Sir."  He  was  an 
English  country  gentleman  of  studious  habits,  born  in  1771,  and 
dying  in  1833,  before  his  Anacalypsis,  in  two  volumes  quarto,   saw 


24  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


the  light.  He  was  previously  well  known  to  antiquaries  by  his 
"Celtic  Druids,"  a  work  of  much  research  but  eccentric  con- 
clusions. The  Anacalypsis  is  a  vast  muddle  of  undigested  infor- 
mation, gathered  from  all  sources,  good,  bad  and  indifferent,  and 
shaped  to  suit  his  preconceived  theory.  It  is  regarded  by  scholars  as 
curious,  but  as  absurd  in  argument.  Mr.  Higgins,  though  learned, 
was  incapable  of  weighing  authorities.  The  sub-title  of  the  Ana- 
calypsis is  "an  Attempt  to  unveil  the  Mysteries  of  the  Saitic  Isis." 
Now,  it  happens  that  the  Saitic  Isis  was  not  veiled.  Plutarch  thus 
quotes  the  inscription  on  the  temple  of  Neith  [probably  the  Egyp- 
tian prototype  of  Athene  or  Minerva]  at  Sais :  ''lam  that  was, 
and  is,  and  is  to  be;  and  my  veil  no  mortal  hath  yet  drawn 
aside."  Whether  Neith  or  Isis  was  the  embodiment  of  the  divine 
wisdom  which  Mr.  Higgins  endeavored  to  solve,  it  is  certain  that 
even  skeptical  scholarship  recognizes  his  utter  failure.  He  was 
childishly  credulous,    "believing   everything  but  the  Bible." 

His  theory  is  that  of  Dupuis,  with  modifications.  Dupuis  a 
French  astromoner,  born  1742,  died  1809,  reached  the  opinion  that 
all  the  religions  of  antiquity  rose  from  nature-worship,  and  that  their 
mythologies  were  allegories  of  celestial  phenomena.  The  sun,  the 
twelve  signs  of  the  zodiac,  and  the  precession  of  the  equinoxes 
solved  every  problem.  He  included  Christianity,  holding  that  the 
alleged  birth  of  Christ,  on  the  25th  of  December,  was  only  the 
passage  of  the  sun  from  the  winter  to  the  vernal  solstice;  that  His 
mother  was  the  constellation  Virgo;  Simon  Peter,  Aquarius,  and  so 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  25 


on.  Other  nations  had  typified  the  same  processes  under  different 
names  from  time  immemorial.  Everything  began,  however,  in 
Egypt.  This  wild  idea  is  not  wholly  destitute  of  fact  as  applied  to 
some  of  the  ancient  heathen  systems.  Its  fault  is  that  it  inverts  the 
pyramid.  The  nations  worshiped  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars,  first  as 
the  dwelling  places  of  divinity,  and  afterwards  as  deities;  but  their 
mythologies  were  largely  distortions  and  exaggerations  of  real, 
earthly  events  which  were  subsequently  ascribed  to  the  heavenly 
bodies,  first  typically  but  finally  in  good  faith,  at  least,  among  the 
masses.  Absurd  as  the  system  of  Dupuis  must  seem,  it  had  a 
temporary  success.  Volney  popularized  it  in  his  "Ruins,"  and 
others  adopted  it  in  part  or  as  a  whole,  but  it  is  now  obsolete,  except 
among  ignorant  infidels  of  the  Boston  Investigator  and  Graves 
stamp.* 

Applied  to  Christianity  it  involves  the  assumption  that  the 
early  Christian  Martyrs  died  for  their  belief  in  a  Master  whom  they 
very  well  knew  never  existed. 

Mr.  Higgins  was  a  great  admirer  of  Dupuis.  He  borrowed 
much  from  him,  and  declared  that  the  priests  hated  his  ''  Origine  de 
Tous  les  Cultes,"  so  much  that  it  was  very  scarce  and  hard  to  get. 

-  This  remark  is  perhaps  too  sweeping,  though  it  would  have  been  true  a  few  years 
ago.  After  slumbering  for  more  than  a  generation  since  the  death  of  Sir  William 
Drummond,  Mr.  Higgins  and  others  of  their  class,  men  with  some  pretensions  to  learning, 
though  with  small  claims  to  common  sense  or  fairness,  like  Goldziher  and  Inman,  show  a 
disposition  to  retrace  some  of  the  abandoned  paths.  They  are  agreed  only  in  their  desire 
to  prove  the  scriptures  unhistorical,  for  they  differ  much  in  both  theories  and  details. 
The  sun  myth  hobby  is  partly  responsible  for  this  revival  of  old  speculations. 


2  6  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

That  was  forty-seven  years  ago.  I  procured  without  difficulty  in 
Paris  last  summer,  a  copy  of  the  unabridged  work  in  three  volumes, 
quarto,  with  an  atlas  of  plates  for  just  $5.  There  were  plenty  more 
to  be  found,  and  the  abundance  and  cheapness  show  the  esteem  in 
in  which  the  book  is  now  held.  The  greatest  blow  that  Dupuis  ever 
received  was  the  discovery  that  the  zodiacs  of  Esneh  and  Denderah, 
which  according  to  his  astronomical  plan  ought  to  be  many 
thousand  years  old,  only  date  back  to  the  Roman  emperors,  and 
are  younger  than  our  era. 

This  was  a  fact  which  Mr.  Higgins  disliked  to  acknowledge,, 
but  he  was  wary,  and  so  selected  India  as  the  mother  of  all  mytho- 
logies. Abraham  himself,  he  says,  was  a  fugitive  from  Brahma 
land.  He  had  suffered  in  a  war  between  the  worshipers  of  the 
female  principle  and  those  who  reverenced  the  male.  He  retained 
much  of  the  old  system  which  adored  the  sun  under  various  incar- 
nations or  avatars.  When  Mr.  Higgins  wrote,  Buddhism  was. 
believed  to  be  older  than  Brahmanism,  a  theory  that  is  now  as  obso- 
lete as  his  philology.  According  to  the  Surya  Siddhanta,  a  famous 
Indian  mathematical  treatise,  which  Mr.  Higgins  held  to  be  of  very 
remote  antiquity,  and  which  the  Brahmans  claim  to  be  inspired,  and  a 
million  years  old,  the  equinoctial  point  moves  eastward  one  degree 
in  six  hundred  years,  and  as  often  as  this  change  occurred  it  was 
thought  that  an  incarnation  took  place.  Among  these,  Krishna 
the  eighth  avatar  of  Vishnu,  was  the  most  famous  in  India,  while 
others    of   the   "Saviors"  had  the  same  reputation  in  the  various 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  27 


countries  to  which  Brahmanism  had  been  carried.  Thus,  actually, 
hving  persons  might  be  falsely  endowed  with  divine  honors  at  each 
cycle.  Sakia,  the  real  historic  Buddha,  was  according  to  Mr. 
Higgins,  the  ninth  Indian  avatar,  following  Krishna  at  an  interval  of 
600  years.  To  Jesus  Christ,  a  Jewish  reformer,  the  same  ascriptions 
were  made  by  Jews  who  had  been  proselyted  to  beliefs  borrowed  by 
the  Essenes  from  the  east.  A  consideration  of  this  process  will  show 
how  the  author  of  the  Anacalypsis,  and  Mr.  Graves,  after  him, 
explain  the  alleged  frequent  appearance  of  "crucified  saviors'^ 
throughout  the  ancient  world.  According  to  them,  Indian 
mythology  had  penetrated -almost  everywhere,  and  people  were  sun- 
worshipers  often  without  knowing  it.  Everything  that  was  super- 
natural in  all  religions  came  from  the  scheme  of  cycles.  We  know 
very  well  that  supernatural  legends  were  abundant  in  the  old  world, 
and  that  heroes  were  often  endowed  with  supernatural  attributes  by 
the  credulous  multitude,  but  they  were  not  generally  Saviours  in  the 
usual  sense  of  the  word,  much  less  crucified  ones,  as  we  have 
already  seen. 

KRISHNA. 

Of  all  the  avatars,  or  incarnations,  Krishna,  whose  name  Mr. 
Graves  spells  Chrishna,  Mr.  Higgins,  Cristna,  and  another  skeptic, 
Christna,  was  the  most  important.  Indeed  he  is  the  one  whom  the 
infidels  of  a  past  generation  endeavored  to  set  up  as  the  prototype 


28  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


of  Christ.  They  attempted,  as  we  have  seen,  to  increase  the 
similarity  of  the  names,  but  the  resemblance  is  more  apparent  than 
real.  Christ,  as  we  hardly  need  say,  means  the  anointed.  Krishna 
signifies  black.  When,  however,  the  English  first  became 
acquainted  with  oriental  literature,  ninety  or  one  hundred  years 
ago,  they  discovered  coincidences  which  were  very  startling. 
Believing  as  some  of  them  did,  that  the  story  of  Krishna  dated 
back  hundreds  of  years  before  the  Christian  era,  there  were  points 
that  were  exceedingly  troublesome.  Krishna  was  the  eighth,  and 
first  complete  avatar  of  Vishnu ;  those  which  preceded  him  being 
mere  emanations.  One  object  of  his  incarnation  was  ''the 
destruction  of  Kansa,  an  oppressive  monarch,  and,  in  fact,  an 
incarnate  Daitya,  or  Titan,  the  natural  enemy  of  the  gods."  Kansa 
was  the  cousin  of  Devaki,  the  divine,  Krishna's  mother,  who  was 
married  to  a  nobleman  named  Vasadeva.  Vasadeva  had  another  wife 
named  Rohini.  Devaki  had  had  six  children,  and  hearing  that  she 
was  about  to  have  another,  Kansa  seized  her  and  her  husband  and 
put  them  in  prison.  Vishnu,  however,  interfered,  and  transferred 
the  unborn  child,  who  was  Balarama,  Krishna's  future  playfellow, 
to  the  womb  of  Rohini,  who  was  still  at  liberty.  Devaki's  eighth 
child  was  Krishna,  so  he  could  hardly  be  said  to  be  born  of  a 
virgin.  Celestial  phenomena,  including  a  great  light  and  the  visit 
of  an  angel  choir,  accompanied  the  birth.  Kansa  pursued  the 
child,  but  its  father  escaped  with  it,  and,  on  reaching  a  river,  the 
infant  commanded  it  to  open  a  passage,  which  it   did,  a   serpent 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  29 


meanwhile  holding  its  head  over  the  youthful  divinity  as  a  kind  of 
umbrella.  His  father  exchanged  him  for  the  child  of  a  cowherd, 
returning  to  the  palace  with  the  latter.  Kansa,  Herod-like,  gave 
orders  for  slaying  all  the  male  children  in  the  neighborhood. 
Krishna  meantime  grew  up  among  the  peasants,  joining  in  all  their 
sports,  marrying  several  of  the  girls,  and  being  very  hcentious  in 
appearance,  if  not  in  reality.  Like  Apollo,  he  was  master  of  the 
lyre,  and  sepents  and  beasts  were  beguiled  by  his  melodies.  He 
overcame  the  great  serpent,  Keliga,  and  trampled  on  its  head.  In 
later  years  he  is  said  to  have  cleansed  lepers,  raised  the  dead, 
descended  into  the  invisible  world,  and  reascended  to  the  proper 
paradise  of  Vishnu.  He  finally  conquered  Kansa,  fought  in  a 
battle  which  lasted  eighteen  days,  twirled  a  mountain  on  his  little 
finger,  stole  a  famous  tree  from  heaven,  and  performed  other 
incredible  deeds.  Rukmini  was  his  favorite  wife,  but  he  had 
sixteen  thousand  others,  each  of  whom  bore  him  ten  sons.  He 
had  been  warned  to  beware  of  the  sole  of  his  foot.  As  he  sat  one 
day  in  the  forest,  a  huntsman.  Jura  (old  age),  mistook  him  for  a 
beast  and  mortally  wounded  him  in  his  foot.  Another  legend  has 
it  that  he  was  nailed  to  a  tree  by  the  arrow,  and  that  he  foretold 
before  dying,  the  miseries  which  would  take  place  in  the  Kali  Yuga, 
a  wicked  age  of  the  world,  thirty-six  years  after  his  death.  So  great 
a  light  it  is  said  to  have  proceeded  from  his  dying  body  that  heaven 
and  earth  were  illuminated. 

It  would  be   absurd  to  say  that  the  life  of  Krishna  parallels 


30  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

that  of  Christ,  but  still  there  are  some  striking  similarities.     What 

is  the  explanation  ?     If  we  are  to  believe  Higgins  and  Graves,  the 

Krishna  story,  as  I  have  epitomized  it  above,   dates  back  to   1200 

B.  C.     The  latter  asserts  in  his   "Bibles:" 

"  In  times  coeval  with  the  earliest  authentic  records,  says  a  writer,  the 
Hindoos  calculated  eclipses,  and  were  venerated  for  their  attainments  in  some 
of  the  arts  and  sciences!  According  to  the  learned  astronomer  Baily  (he 
ineans  Bailly)  their  calculations  in  astronomy  extended  back  to  the  remote 
period  of  seventeen  hundred  years  before  Moses,  and  some  of  the  ancient 
monuments  and  inscriptions  of  India  bespeak  for  its  religion  a  very  remote 
antiquity.  Some  of  our  modern  learned  antiquarians  have  expressed  the  opin- 
ion that  the  Sanscrit  language  of  the  Brahmans  is  the  oldest  language  that  can 
be  traced  in  the  history  of  the  human  race.  They  also  state  that  this  language 
was  extant  before  the  Jews  were  known  as  a  nation  ;  and  neither  it  nor  their 
religion  has  ez'cr  been  known  to  change.  These  facts  are  sufficient  to  establish 
the  existence  of  the  Brahman  and  Buddhist  systems  of  religion  long  prior  to 
the  earliest  records  of  the  Jewish  nation." 

A  greater  amount  of  absurdity  and  falsehood  could  hardly  have 
been  compressed  within  so  few  lines.  Yet  much  of  what  is  said  was 
believed  by  Mr.  Higgins,  and  forms  the  basis  of  his  hypothesis.  We 
mention  as  a  well  known  fact  that  Hindoo  religion  found  its  earliest 
expression  in  the  Vedas,  so  called  from  Ved,  the  law.  There  are 
four  of  these,  the  oldest  being  the  Rig  Veda.  They  are  believed  to 
have  come  immediately  from  God.  Each  consists  of  two  parts,  the 
first  called  Sanhita,  comprising  hymns,  jDrayers  and  ceremonies  for 
sacrifice  and  oblations;  the  second  called  Brahmana,  in  which  the 
first  cause,  creation  of  the  world,  moral  duties,  precepts,  j^unish- 
ments,    etc.,  are  set  forth.     They  have  a  number  of  supplements 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  31 

and  commentaries.  Many  of  the  hymns  are  subUme,  but  there  is  a 
decided  leaning  toward  pantheism.  There  is  some  doubt  as  to  their 
age.  Bunsen,  always  extravagant  on  the  side  of  antiquity,  thought 
that  some  of  the  hymns  might  have  been  composed  three  thousand 
years  before  Christ.  Prof.  Whitney  of  Yale  College,  the  leading 
Sanscrit  scholar  in  our  country,  inclines  to  2000  to  1500  B.  C. ; 
Max  Mueller,  the  translator  of  the  Rig  Veda,  thinks  the  hymns 
were  collected  in  their  present  form  from  twelve  hundred  to  one 
thousand  years  before  Christ,  though  composed  earlier.  It  must  be 
noticed  that  the  Vedas  have  nothing  to  say  of  a  trinity  composed  of 
Brahma,  Vishnu  and  Siva,  or  of  any  incarnations.  Brahma  was 
then  neuter,  scarcely  personified.  In  the  Institutes  of  Manu,  a  later 
compilation,  there  is  the  first  trace  of  the  modern  system  of  gods. 

Next  comes  the  grand  period  of  the  great  epics,  the  Mahab- 
harata  and  the  Ramayana,  pre-Christian,  but  with  many  compara- 
tively modern  interpolations  and  changes.  An  episode  of  the 
former  recounts  a  dialogue  between  Krishna  and  Arjuna,  whom  he  is 
serving  as  charioteer.  This  episode  is  known  as  the  Bhavagat-gita. 
The  Krishna  legend  has  now  become  established.  It  does  not 
contain,  however,  the  most  striking  points  of  resemblance  to  the 
gospel  naratives  which  we  have  summarized,  and  yet  the  Bhavagat- 
gita  is  held  to  be  post-Christian  by  leading  scholars,  some  assigning 
it  to  the  first,  and  others  to  the  third  century  of  our  era.  It  is  in 
the  Puranas,  and  in  one  of  the  most  recent  of  them,  the  Vishnu- 
Purana,  regarded  by  some  as  only  three  or  four  hundred  years  old. 


Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


by  others  relegated  to  the  twelfth  century,  that  it  appears  full  blown.        j 
Granting  the  utmost  that  can  be  demanded,   the  features,  on  which 
Mr.  Graves  lays  chief  stress  are  post-Christian ;    probably    stealings 
from  the  apocryphal  gospels,  which  we  have  good  reasons  to  believe        | 
were  circulated  in  India  in  the  early  Christian  centuries.     There  was 
much   trade   between   that   country   and   the  west,    and  Nestorian        ■ 
missionaries  visited  it-  before  the  Puranas  attained  their  present  form.        '. 

INDIAN    ANTIQUITY    AND    LITERATURE.  \ 

As  to  the  age  of  Hindoo  literature  I  shall  first   quote  the  late        i 
Ebenezer  Burgess's  able  "Antiquity  and  Unity  of  the  Human  Race." 
He  was  a  clergyman  and  missionary  to  be  sure,  but  Mr.  Graves  fre-        , 
quently  cites  the  Rev.  D.  O.  Allen,  another  missionary,  so  he  can- 
not object  to  the  class.     Besides,  Mr.  Burgess  was  a  member  of  the 
American  Oriental  Society,   author  of   a  Marratta  Grammar,   and        ■ 
co-translator  of  the  Surya  Siddhanta,  an  Indian  mathematical  work 
already  mentioned  and  to  which  reference  is  made  in  the  * 'Saviors." 
He  says:  1 

"The  earliest  Hindoo  writings  and  the  earliest  astronomical  observations         ' 
on  record  cannot  h^  proved  to  have  had  an  earlier  date  than  the  fourteenth  or 
fifteenth  century  before  Christ,  though  a  few  hundred  more  may  be  conceded         ] 
as  probable.     The  oldest  astronomical  treatise,  which  has  been  regarded, as  an 
important  witness  against  the  Bible,  is  proved  incontrovertibly  to  have  been 
composed  some  four  or  five  centuries  after  Christ.     And  as  the  work  of  bring-        ^ 
ing    to  light  the  ancient  literature  of  the  Brahmans  proceeds,  the  tendency         ; 
among  European  scholars  is  to  bring  it  within  more  and  more  modern  limits. 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic. 


33 


This  tendency  to  modernize  is  sometimes,  doubtless,  allowed  to  proceed  too 
far.  But,  however,  this  may  l^c,  this  fact  may  be  regarded  as  estalilished, 
viz:  that  the  ancient  literature  of  India  affords  no  materials  for  disproving 
(he  truthfulness  of  the  Bible;  on  tlie  contrary,  it  contains  much  that  corrobor- 
ates the  claims  of  the  sacred  volume  to  a  divine  authenticity." 

I  will  furnish  him  with  a  still  more  radical  citation  from  that 
most  eminent  secular  authority,  Klaproth.  He  says  in  his  Memoires 
Relatifs  a  1'  Asie : 

"The  astronomical  tables  of  the  Hindoos,  to  which  a  prodigious  an- 
tiquity has  been  attributed  were  constructed  in  the  seventh  century  of  the  com- 
mon era,   and  were  posteriorly  reported  by  calculations  to  an  anterior  epoch." 

We  thus  see  what  becomes  of  the  Surya  Siddhanta  and  its  rev- 
alations  regarding  the  cycles.  Furthermore,  the  antiquity  which 
Messrs  Higgins  and  Graves  claim,  is  based  on  the  speculations  of 
Bailly,  a  French  astronomer  of  the  last  century,  Avhom  even  Voltaire 
beheved  to  be  wild.  Laplace,  an  unbeliever,  and  the  greatest 
astronomer  of  his  day,  was  equally  convinced  of  the  absurdities  of 
Bailly's  scheme.      He  says: 

"  l"he  origin  of  astronomy  in  Persia  and  India  is  lost,  as  among  all  other 
nations,  in  the  darkness  of  their  ancient  history.  The  Indian  tables  suppose  a 
very  advanced  state  of  astronomy  ;  but  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that 
they  can  claim  no  very  high  antiquity.  Herein  I  differ  with  pain  from  an 
illustrious  and  unfortunate  friend."  [Bailly  was  guillotined  in  the  first  French 
revolution.] 

Other  eminent  astronomers  coincide  with  Laplace,  and 
it  is  a  common  if  not  dominant  belief  that  the  Indians  derived 
their     astronomy     from    abroad.-'^         More    than    this,     a    noted 

=•■  See  Postscript. 

5 


34  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


English  astronomer,  Mr.  Bentley,  taking  the  statements  of  the 
Janampatra  or  horoscope  of  Krishna,  which  contains  the  position 
of  the  planets  at  the  time  of  his  birth,  found  that  the  heavens  could 
only  have  been  as  there  described  on  the  7th  of  August  A.  D.  600. 
This  shows  that  the  astronomical  calculations  respecting  him  are 
comparatively  modern.  What  then  is  left  of  Mr.  Higgins'  cycles  ? 
But  we  are  told  that  Alexander  the  Great  heard  the  name  of 
Krishna  when  in  India  in  the  fourth  century  before  the  Christian 
era.  This  is  granted,  though  Arrian  who  tells  the  story,  lived  in  the 
second  century  of  our  era.  We  do  not  ignore  the  fact  that  there 
may  have  been  an  ancient  hero,  about  whom  legends  gradually 
clustered.  Yet  the  Puranas,  which  are  almost  the  sole  authority 
for  the  life  of  Krishna,  so  far  as  it  resembles  that  of  Christ,  are 
known  to  be  modern.  The  Bhavagat-gita,  as  we  have  said,  is 
referred  to  the  first  and  third  centuries  after  Christ,  while  the 
Puranas  which  furnish  the  most  startling  and  numerous  coinci- 
dences, are  as  says,  H.  H.  Wilson  in  his  *'  Religion  of  the  Hindoos," 
not  *'  anterior  to  the  eighth  or  ninth  centuries  and  the  most  recent 
not  above  three  or  four  centuries  old."  That  relating  especially  to 
Krishna,  which  supplies  most  of  our  account  of  him,  has  been 
conceded  by  Brahmans  as  the  production  of  Yopadesa,  who  flour- 
ished in  the  twelfth  century  of  our  era.  If  any  resemblances 
between  Christ  and  Krishna  seem  to  exist  in  the  older  versions,  after 
due  excision  of  the  later  accounts  has  been  made,  we  may  give  the 
parallelism  all  the  weight  it  deserves  and  suffer  nothing.  As  Hard- 
wick  says  in  his  "  Christ  and  Other  Masters  : " 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  35 


"If  Krishna  was  violently  persecuted  in  his  infancy,  it  might  be  an- 
•swered,  so  was  Hercules  exposed  to  the  implacable  rage  of  Juno.  If  Krishna, 
in  his  triumphs  comes  before  us  crowned  with  flowers,  the  description  will 
apply  to  Bacchus  also.  If  Krishna,  veiling  his  divinity,  is  said  to  have  been 
concealed  beneath  the  roof  of  Nanda,  the  cow-herd,  Apollo,  in  like  manner, 
acted  like  an  ordinary  mortal,  when  he  sought  a  shelter  in  the  household  of 
Admetus.  Or  if,  again,  Krishna  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  purely  human  and  his- 
torical hero,  doomed  to  death  in  childhood  from  forebodings  that  his  life 
would  prove  the  ruin  of  another,  we  can  find  his  parallel  in  the  elder  Cyrus, 
who  had  also  been  intrusted  to  the  care  of  herdsmen  to  preserve  him  from  the 
vengeance  of  his  royal  grandfather,  whose  death  it  was  foretold  he  should 
eventually  accomplish." 

We  have  said  enough  about  Krishna,  we  should  think,  to  sat- 
isfy a  reasonable  person  that  if  any  parallelism  exists  between  him 
and  Christ,  it  was  not  borrowed  from  the  Indian  hero.  It  should 
also  be  noticed  that  it  is  only  by  a  stretch  of  the  imagination  that 
Krishna  can  be  said  to  have  been  crucified.  Further,  there  is  no 
■doctrinal  likeness.      As  Hardwick  well  says  : 

"The  most  perfect  incarnation  of  Vishnu,  as  found  in  Krishna,  is  docetic 
merely ;  it  rather  seems  to  be  than  is.  According  to  the  theory  of  matter 
which  prevailed  among  his  followers,  the  divine  and  human  could  not  truly 
■come  together,  and  could  not  permanently  co-exist.  The  one  essentially  ex- 
cludes the  other.  Krishna,  therefore,  on  going  back  to  his  celestial  home,  or 
in  the  language  of  philosophy,  on  his  re-absorption  into  the  Great  Spirit  of  the 
universe,  entirely  lays  aside  the  perishable  flesh  which  he  had  once  inhabited. 
"*  *  *  In  this  respect,  he  differs  altogether  from  the  God-man  of  the 
■Christian  Church,  the  Mediator  in  whom  divine  and  human  are  completely 
reconciled." 

Mr.  Graves  has  asserted  that  the  Hindoo  religion  has  never 
changed.     We  have  already  indicated  the   absurdity  of  this  state- 


36  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

ment.  There  has  been,  even  leaving  out  of  account  the  great  Bud- 
dhist schism,  as  every  tyro  in  oriental  literature  knows,  a  complete 
and  constant  departure  from  nature-worship  to  a  pantheon  crowded 
with  millions  of  divinities,  and  from  a  simple  ceremonial  to  the 
grossest  and  most  barbarous  rites.  It  is  the  same  process  which  has 
taken  place  in  all  lands  where  God  in  His  unity  has  been  abandoned. 
The  first  chapter  of  Romans  describes  the  downward  road  in 
perfectly  vivid  language. 

•We  read,  in  the  article  on  Brahmanism,  in  the  latest  edition  of 
the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  :  . 

"  Buddhism  appears  to  have  been  the  State  religion  in  most  parts  of 
India  during  the  early  centuries  of  our  era.  To  what  extent  it  became  the 
actual  creed  of  the  body  of  the  people  it  will  probably  be  impossible  ever  to 
ascertain.  One  of  the  chief  effects  it  produced  on  the  worship  of  the  old 
gods  was  the  rapid  decline  of  the  authority  of  the  orthodox  Brahmanical 
dogma,  and  a  considerable  development  of  sectarianism.  Among  the  great 
variety  of  the  deities  of  the  pantheon,  Siva,  Vishnu,  and  Parvati  have  since 
claimed,  by  far,  the  largest  share  of  adoration,  and  it  is  in  special  accounts  of 
the  Saira,  Vishnaro,  and  Sakete  sects,  rather  than  in  an  exposition  of  the 
Brahmanical  belief,  that  the  religious  history  of  India,  from  about  the  begin- 
ning of  our  era,  can  be  dealt  with  satisfactorily.  At  that  time,  the  worship 
of  Vishnu  in  his  most  popular  avatar,  in  the  person  of  Krishna,  appears  to 
have  received  much  countenance  at  the  hands  of  the  priests,  with  a  view  of 
counteracting  the  growing  influence  of  Buddhism.  The  sectarian  spirit  gave 
gradually  rise  to  a  special  class  of  works,  the  modern  Puranas  composed  for 
the  express  purpose  of  promoting  the  worship  of  some  particular  deity.  In 
the  seventh  century,  the  authority  of  Sakyamouni's  (Buddha's  doctrine  was 
already  on  the  wane.  *  *  ■■•'■  Siva  does  not  occur  in  the  Vedic  hymns 
as  the  name  of  a  god,  but  only  as  an  adjective  in  the  sense  of  kind  auspices. 
"  Vishnu  occupies  a  place  in  the  Vedic  mythology,  though  by  no  means  such  a 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  37 

place  as  would  entitle  him  to  that  degree  of  exaltation  implied  in  his  charac- 
ter as  one  of  the  three  hypostases  of  the  divinity,  -•■  -=■  *  As  the 
language  of  the  Aryan  Hindoos  has  undergone  continued  processes  of  modifi- 
cation and  dialectic  division  so  their  religious  belief  has  passed  through  vari- 
ous stages  of  development,  boldly  distinguished  by  certain  prominent  features." 

The  Suttee  is  comparatively  modern.  Tlie  Rig  Veda  tells  the 
widow  to  go  home  from  her  husband's  funeral  rite  and  resume  her 
duties. 

This  is  sufficient  to  show  that  Mr.  Graves'  Sanscrit  studies  must 
have  been  undertaken  under  very  unfavorable  circumstances.  We 
should  expect  such  mistakes  from  a  man  who  alleges  Horace 
Greeley  as  authority  for  the  statement  that  there  is  "no  doctrine  of 
Christianity  but.  what  has  been  anticipated  by  the  Vedas  1  " 
ANOTHER    OF    MR.    GRAVES'    AUTHORITIES. 

I  have  said  that  "  Higgins'  Anacalypsis  "  is  Mr.  Graves'  chief 
authority  in  regard  to  the  "  Saviors,"  and  other .  points ;  but  he  is 
not  the  only  one.  We  have  frequent  unacknowledged  flings  from 
"  Paine's  Age  of  Reason,"  for  which  Bishop  Watson's  "Apology"  is 
a  sufficient  antidote ;  and  more  from  that  very  dishonest  and  ill-tem- 
pered work,  Taylor's  Diegesis,  a  treatise  which  makes  Krishna  the 
prototype  of  Christ,  and  accepts  as  true  the  blunder  of  Eusebius  in 
reckoning  the  Essenes  as  the  original  Christians — an  idea  repudiated 
by  the  great  mass  of  the  Christian  Church,  ancient  and  modern,  as 
by  the  able  skeptic,  Gibbon,  already  quoted.  Taylor  recanted  his 
infidelity  in  later  life,  and  so  may  be  regarded  as  having  abandoned 
his  untenable  hypothesis.     No  modern  writer  of  eminence  has  con- 


38  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


founded  the  Essenes  with  the  Christians,  save  DeQuincey,  the 
eccentric  opium  eater,  and  Taylor's  assertions  regarding  Krishna 
have  been  overthrown  in  our  criticisms  of  Higgins  and  Graves. 

There  is  another  writer,  however,  from  whom  the  latter 
appears  to  have  borrowed  largely  in  his  "Saviors,"  and  to  whom 
he  does  not  give  due  credit.  That  writer  is  M.  Louis  Jacolliot, 
whose  ''Bible  in  India''  has  helped  Mr.  Graves  to  fill  his  pages  of 
alleged  coincidences  between  the  lives  and  teachings  of  Krishna 
and  Christ,  and  between  the  names  of  Old  Testament  and  Vedic 
characters.  Regarding  the  former,  he  is  frank  enough  to  say  in  a 
note  what  most  men  would  dislike  to  confess : 

"The  author  deems  it  proper  to  state  here  with  respect  to  the  comparison 
between  Christ  and  Chrishna,  that  some  of  the  doctrines  which  he  has 
selected  as  constituting  a  part  of  religion  of  the  Hindoo  Savior,  are  not  found 
in  the  teachings  of  that  deified  moralist.  But  as  they  appear  to  breathe  forth 
the  same  spirit,  it  is  presumed  he  would  have  endorsed  them  had  they  come 
under  his  notice." 

I  have  not  room  to  examine  all  Mr.  (xraves'  pretended 
exposition  of  Krishnaism  and  its  parallelism  with  Christianity.  In- 
stead of  doing  so,  I  shall  simply  bring  evidence  as  to  the  utter 
worthlessness  of  the  authority  on  which  he  has  based  his  statements. 
Mr.  John  Fiske,  whom  he  should  accept  as  an  impartial  judge  since 
he  is  is  one  of  the  most  zealous  advocates  of  the  "science"  which 
is  to  overthrow  the  Bible,  says  in  a  review  of  :\Ir.  Gladstone's. 
''Juventus  Mundi  :" 

"But  the  whole  subject  of  comparative  mythology  seems  to  be  terra, 
incognita   to   Mr.    Gladstone.     -     *     The   only   work   which  seems  really  to- 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  39 


have  attracted  his  attention  is  M.  Jacolliot's  very  discreditable  performance 
called  'The  Bible  in  India.'  Mr.  Gladstone  does  not,  indeed,  unreservedly 
approve  of  this  book  ;  ])ut  neither  does  he  appear  to  suspect  that  it  is  a 
disgraceful  piece  of  charlatanry,  written  by  a  man  ignorant  of  the  very 
rudiments  of  the  subject  which  he  proposes  to  handle." 

But  I  have  a  still  more  important  witness  against  M.  Jacolliot, 
and  as  his  testimony  is  very  curious  and  interesting,  I  shall  be  ex- 
cused for  reproducing  it  at  considerable  length.  Max  Mueller,  the 
eminent  philologist,  whose  authority  on  oriental  literature  is  second 
to  none,  has  published  a  paper  on  ''A  Chapter  of  Accidents  in 
Comparative  Theology."  After  recounting  many  of  the  mistakes 
into  which  learned  men  have  fallen  in  their  attempts  to  discover 
similarities  between  the  Biblical  narratives  and  the  various  heathen 
mythologies,  and  showing  the  fallacy  of  identifying  totally  different 
personages,  historical  or  fabulous,  from  some  resemblance  between 
their  names,  and  instancing  the  errors  of  Sir  Wm.  Jones,  he 
continues : 

"  It  was  under  these  influences  that  Lieut.  Wilford,  a  contemporary  of 
of  Sir  William  Jones,  as  co-laborer  took  up  the  thread  which  Sir  William 
Jones  had  dropped.  Convinced  that  the  Brahmans  possessed  in  their  ancient 
literature  the  originals  not  qnly  of  Greek  and  Roman  mythology,  but  likewise 
of  the  Old  Testament  history,  he  tried  every  possible  means  to  overcome  their 
reserve  and  reticence.  ^  *  "•=■  The  coyness  of  Pandits  yielded.  The 
incessant  demand  created  a  supply,  and  for  several  years  essay  after  essay 
appeared  in  the  Asiatic  Researches,  with  extracts  from  Sanscrit  MSS,  con- 
taining not  only  the  names  of  Deukalion,  Prometheus,  and  other  heroes  and 
deities  of  Greece,  but  likewise  the  names  of  Adam  and  Eve,  of  Abra- 
ham and  Sarah,  and  all  the  rest.  '••  ^  At  last,  however,  the  coincidences 
became  too  great.     The  jMSS.  were  again  carefully  examined,  and  then  it  was 


40  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


found  that  a  clever  forgery  had  been  committed,  that  leaves  had  been  inserted 
in  ancient  MSS.,  and  that  on  these  leaves,  the  Pandits,  urged  by  Lieut. 
Wilford  to  disclose  their  ancient  mysteries  and  traditions,  had  rendered  in 
correct  Sanscrit  verses  all  that  they  had  heard  about  Adan)  and  Abraham  from 
their  inquisitive  master.  Lieut,  (then  Col.)  Wilford  did  not  hestitate  to 
confess  that  he  had  been  imposed  upon."  Mr.  Mueller  continues  :  "  As  long, 
however,  as  researches  of  this  kind  are  carried  on  for  their  own  sake,  and  from 
a  mere  desire  of  discovering  truth,  without  any  ulterior  objects,  they  deserve 
no  blame,  though  for  a  time  they  may  lead  to  erroneous  results.  But  when 
coincidences  between  different  religions  are  searched  out  simply  in  support  of 
preconceived  theories,  whether  by  the  friends  or  enemies  of  true  religion,  the 
sense  of  truth,  the  very  life  of  all  science  is  sacrificed,  and  serious 
mischief  will  follow  without  fail.  Here  we  have  a  right,  not  only 
to  protest  but  to  blame.  There  is  on  this  account  a  great  difference 
between  the  books  we  have  hitherto  examined  and  a  work  lately 
published  in  Paris  by  M.  J^icolliot,  under  the  sensational  title  of 
La  Bible  dans  P Iiidc;  7'ie  de  Jesus  Christna.  If  this  book  had  been  written 
with  the  pure  enthusiasm  of  Lieut.  Wilford  it  might  have  been  passed 
by  as  mere  anachronism.  But  when  one  sees  how  its  author  shuts  his  eyes 
against  all  evidence  that  could  tell  against  h'im,  and  brings  together  without 
any  critical  scruples  whatever  seems  to  support  his  theory  that  Christianity  is 
a  mere  copy  of  the  ancient  religion  of  India,  mere  silence  would  not  be  a  suffi- 
cient answer.  Besides,  the  book  has  lately  been  translated  into  English,  and 
will  be  read,  no  doubt,  by  many  people  who  cannot  test  the  evidence  on 
which  it  purpprts  to  be  founded." 

Mr.  Mueller  tells  how  M.  Jacolliot,  who  was  a  judge  at 
Chandernagore,  from  studying  the  ancient  holy  books  of  the 
Hindoos,  became  convinced  that  our  civiHzation,  our  religion,  our 
legends,  and  our  gods,  have  come  to  us  from  India,  after  passing  in 
succession  through  Egypt,  Persia,  Ji^dea,  Greece  and  Italy.  He 
found  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  in  the  A^edas,  and   quotes   texts 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  41 


which  allege  that  Brahma  created  Adima  (in  Sanscrit  the  first  man), 
and  gave  him  for  a  companion  Heva  (in  Sanscrit,  that  which  com- 
pletes life.)     Our  author  continues : 

"But  much  more  extraordinary  things  are  quoted  by  Jacolliot  from  the 
Yedas  and  the  commentaries.  In  one  passage  of  the  Vedas  we  are  told  that 
the  ancient  poet  exclaimed,  'Woman  is  the  soul  of  humanity.'  On  page  63 
we  read  that  Manu,  Minos  and  Manes  had  the  same  name  as  Moses,  &c. 
a-  ^-  *  It  has  been  remarked  with  some  surprise  that  Vedic  scholars  in  Eu- 
rope had  failed  to  discover  those  important  passages  in  the  Veda  which  he 
has  pointed  out,  or  still  worse,  that  they  had  never  brought  them  to  the  atten- 
tion of  the  public.  "-^  *  *  It  is  simply  the  story  of  Lieut.  Wilford  over 
again,  only  far  less  excusable  now  than  a  hundred  years  ago,  and  decidedly 
reprehensible  on  account  of  the  author's  unscientific  bias.  Many  of  the  words 
-which  M.  Jacolliott  quotes  as  Sanscrit,  are  not  Sanscrit  at  all  ;  others  never 
"have  the  meaning  which  he  assigns  to  them  ;  and  as  to  the  passages  from  the 
"Vedas  (including  an  old  friend,  the  Bhaga  veda  gita),  they  are  not  from  any 
old  Sanscrit  writer — they  simply  belong  to  the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  What  happened  to  Lieut.  Wilford  has  happened  again  to  M.  Ja- 
•colliot.  He  tells  us  the  secret  himself.  '  One  day,'  he  says,  'when  we  were 
xeading  the  translation  of  Manu  l)y  Sir  W.  Jones,  a  note  led  us  to  consult  the 
Indian  commentator  Kutiska  Batha,  when  we  found  an  allusion  to  the  sacri- 
■fice  of  a  son  by  his'  father  prevented  by  God  himself,  after  He  had  commanded 
it.  We  then  had  only  one  determination  to  find  again  in  the  dark  mass  of 
the  religious  books  of  the  Hindoos,  the  original  account  of  that  event.  We 
should  never  have  succeeded  but  for  the  complaisance  of  a  Brahman,  with 
whom  we  were  reading  Sanscrit,  and  who,  yielding  to  our  request,  brought 
ais  from  the  lil^rary  of  his  pagoda  the  works  of  the  theologian  Romet  Savias, 
which  yielded  us  precious  assistance  in  this  volume.'  As  to  the  story  of  the 
•son  offered  as  a  sacrifice  by  his  father  and  released  at  the  command  of  the 
;gods,  continues  Mr.  Mueller,  M.  Jacolliot  ought  to  have  found  the  original 
account  of  it  from  the  Veda,  with  text  and  translation,  in  any  history  of  an- 
cient Sanscrit  literature.      He   would   soon   have  seen  that    the  story  of  Suns- 

6 


42  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


chepa  being  sold  by  his  father  in  order  to  l)e  sacrificed  in  the  place  of  an  In- 
dian prince  has  very  little  in  common  with  the  intended  sacrifice  of  Isaac  by 
Abraham.  M,  Jacolliot  has,  no  doubt,  found  out  by  this  time  that  he  has- 
been  imposed  upon,  and,  if  so,  he  ought  to  follow  the  example  of  Col.  WiL- 
ford,  and  publicly  state  what  has  happened.  Even  then,  I  doubt  not  that  his. 
statements 'will  continue  to  be  quoted  for  a  long  time,  and  that  Adima  and 
Heva,  thus  brought  to  light  again,  will  make  their  appearance  in  many  a 
book  and  many  a  lecture  room." 

This  expectation  has  been  abundantly  reaHzed  in  Mr.  Graves' 
volumes.  Will  he  acknowledge  his  error  now  that  it  has  been  made 
known  to  him  on  unimpeachable  authority  ? 


BUDDHISM— THE    ZEND-AVESTA. 

The^  reader  has  perhaps  had  enough  of  Mr.  Graves.  The 
utter  worthlessness  of  his  authorities  relative  to  Brahmanism  has 
been  demonstrated,  and  his  glaring  incompetency  to  separate  truth 
from  falsehood  has  been  made  equally  apparent.  Yet  his  assertions 
on  some  other  departments  of  his  subject  must  not  be  passed  over. 
We  can  afford  to  be  brief  with  his  attempt  to  confound  Buddhism 
with  Christianity.  Their  doctrines  are  entirely  different;  the  one 
making  nirvana  or  annihilation  by  absorption  into  divinity  the  end 
of  all,  and  denying  any  personality  to  the  Supreme ;  while  in  the 
other  "life  and  immortality  are  brought  to  light."  There  are 
legends  that  Buddha  was  born  of  the  Virgin  Maia,  but  they  can  be 
traced  no  nearer  than  several  hundred  years  after  his  death,  and 
several  centuries  after  Christianity  was  established.     The  Buddhist 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  43 


romancers  simply  adopted  Christian  facts  into  their  own  mythology. 
There  is  no  resemblance  between  the  ascetic  life  and  natural  de- 
cease of  Buddha,  and  Christ's  miraculous  career  and  violent  death. 
We  know  that  Mr.  Higgins  has  attempted  to  prove  that  both 
Krishna  and  Buddha  were  crucified,  but  he  has  to  pass  off  Roman 
Catholic  pictures  taken  by  the  Portuguese  to  India  as  heathen  pro- 
ductions, and  quote  unsupported  legends  to  make  even  a  fair  show 
for  his  case.* 

The  Zend-Avesta  or  Zenda-Avesta,  as  Mr.  Graves  improperly 
calls  it,  means  Avesta  —  text,  and  Zend  translation,  commentary, 
or  paraphrase.  It  is  the  ancient  Parsee  Bible  proper;  but  the 
Sadder,  which  our  author  calls  its  New  Testament,  is  only  a 
summary  of  Parsee  doctrine. 

He  says  also,  "The  historical  facts  to  establish  the  Persian 
religion  long  prior  to  that  of  the  Jews  are  numerous,  cogent  and 
unanswerable.  They  have  calculations  in  astronomy,  which  scien- 
tists admit  must  have  been  made  four  hundred  years  anterior  to  the 
time  of  Moses.  According  to  Berosus,  fragments  of  their  history 
have  been  found  which  extend  it  back  fifteen  thousand  years ;  and 
he  fells  us  it  is  computed  with  great  care."  This,  as  far  as  the 
scientists  are  concerned,  is  decidedly  novel,  and  if  the  statement  of 
Berosus  is  to  be  believed,  they  disagree  with  him,  since  there  is  a 
vast  difference  between  fifteen  thousand  years  and  four  hundred 
before  Moses,  which  last  would  carry  us  back  to  about  the  time  of 
Abraham.      Berosus  was  a  priest  of  Belus  at  Babylon,  and  historical 

=•=  See  Postscript. 


44  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One, 


writer  who  lived  in  the  fourth  century  before  Christ.  He  is  not  a 
very  ancient  authority,  and  not  a  very  trustworthy  one.  He 
claimed  for  his  own  Chaldea  an  antiquity  of  2,150,000  years,  so 
that  his  statements  respecting  Medo-Persia  are  at  least  to  be  taken 
with  allowance.  Many  have  thought  that  Zoroaster  was  a  contem- 
porary of  Darius,  but  it  is  generally  believed  that  he  lived  much 
earlier.  He  is  supposed  to  be  the  author  of  some  parts  of  the  Zend- 
Avesta,  but  not  of  all,  and  much  of  the  original  work  is  lost. 
Hardwick  ("Christ  and  Other  Masters'")  says: 

"One  chief  result  of  modern  exploration  in  this  region  of  philology  has 
been  to  demonstrate  that  whether  as  preserved  in  the  original,  or  as  translated 
by  Parsees,  the  treatises  of  the  Avesta  in  their  present  sliape  can  date  no  farther 
back  than  the  Sassanian  revival  in  the  time  of  Arlaxerxes,  or  the  third  century 
of  the  Christian  era,  (A.  D.  226.)  Another  of  tlicse  results  has  tended  to  con- 
firm and  justify  suspicions  with  regard  to  the  antiquity  of  several  writings 
Avhich  are  commonly  adduced  as  high  authorities  by  modern  Parsees.  Of  one 
important  work  (the  Bundehesh)  we  may  affirm  with  certainty  that  it  had 
never  existed  in  the  Zend  or  elder  dialect  of  Persia.       ■•'  •■■  -'■  ••'         * 

Such  criticisms  are  not,  of  course,  intended  to  deny  that  many  chapters 
of  the  Persian  sacred  works  have  been  actually  committed  to  writing  as  early 
as  400  B.  C,  for  '  books  of  Zoroastrians '  are  related  to  have  perished  at  the 
time  of  Alexander's  expedition.  Many,  also,  of  the  sacred  chants  and  cere- 
monial precepts,  many  as  now  existing,  have  originated  at  the  epoch  of  the 
first  migrations.  Yet,  while  granting  this,  our  ablest  scholars  seem  to  be 
persuaded  more  and  mere  that  Avorks  which  have  been  brought  together  in 
the  Avesta,  are  not  only  the  productions  of  different  ages,  but  have  all  been 
modified  and  modernized  by  the  intrusion  of  fresh  matter." 

To  the  same  effect  we  might  quote  other  authorities,  but  Hard- 
wick is  inferior  to  none  in  his  field.  It  is  true  that  in  the  Zend- 
Avesta  the  narratives  of  the  temptations,  the  fall  of  angels,  etc., 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  45 

have  a  closer  resemblance  to  the  Biblical  statements  on  the  same 
subject  than  most  other  ancient  records.  Yet  they  are  mingled  with 
much  that  is  degrading,  and  the  collection  lacks  the  historical  form 
of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  The  unity  and  personality  of  God,  the 
grand  peculiarity  of  our  Bible,  is  wanting.  We  have  instead  the 
dualism  which  makes  Ormuzd  the  good,  and  Ahriman  the  evil  deity. 
We  cannot  be  sure  that  the  resemblances  to  the  Bible  were  not  de- 
rived from  intercourse  between  the  Jews  and  their  Persian  masters 
in  the  captivity,  or  even  in  post-Christian  times ;  since,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  Zend-Avesta  in  its  present  form  is  no  older  than  the  third 
century  of  our  era.  Again,  assuming  the  truth  of  Genesis,  we 
should  be  prepared  to  expect  certain  coincidences  of  traditions.  A 
deliverer  is  promised  there,  and  though  the  nations  that  "forget 
God"  were  suffered  to  go  on  in  the  path  of  wickedness  which  they 
had  chosen,  with  minds  constantly  becoming  more  blind  through 
the  influence  of  the  hardening  of  the  heart  which  sin  always  brings, 
they  could  not  wholly  forget  primeval  revelation.  History  is  full, 
not  of  ''Crucified  Saviors,"  but  of  man's  consciousness  of  sin,  and 
desperate  longings  to  make  peace  with  the  "  great  first  cause  least 
understood,"  but  of  whom  the  visible  universe  so  plainly  testified 
that  they  were  without  excuse  for  their  misdeeds.  Plutarch  says 
that  many  cities  are  without  Avails;  some  without  temples,  but  none 
without  an  altar.  Whence  came  this  universal  belief  in  the  neces- 
sity of  sacrifices  and  blood  atonement?  Was  it  the  product  of 
man's  imagination  and  fears,  or  was  it,  even  in  its  gross  perversion,. 


46  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

such  as  the  immolation  of  human  beings,  a  survival  of  the  faith  by 
which  Abel  offered  up  the  firstlings  of  his  flock  ?  The  conscience 
of  men  to-day,  of  the  learned  and  refined,  as  well  as  of  the  ignorant 
and  coarse,  utters  the  same  teachings.  Yet  Mr.  Graves  says  the 
''Bibles"  were  all  written  when  man  was  animal  rather  than  intel- 
lectual, and  that  he  has  now  out-grown  such  conceptions.  On  the 
contrary  he  himself  is  a  living  witness  to  the  truth  of  what  we  have 
stated.  He  cannot  rest.  He  is  constantly  berating  Christianity 
and  asserting  that  it  is  dead,  but  the  spectre  will  not  down.  His 
boastings  are  like  the  whistlings  of  the  superstitious  man  as  he 
passes  through  a  grave  yard  after  dark,  the  proof  of  his  appre- 
hensions. 

All  Christians  recognize  in  the  heathen  dogmas  the  workings 
of  man's  sense  of  sin  and  the  vague  traditions  of  the  fall  and  the 
promised  helper.  They  know,  however,  that  the  latter  first  ap- 
peared in  the  One  who  said,  "I  am  the  way,  the  trutli  and  the  Hfe" 
— not  as  did  Plato,  Socrates  and  others,  that  He  was  the  disciple  of 
truth.  We  well  know  that  sublime  ethical  doctrines  are  scattered 
through  the  writings  of  the  ancient  sages.  They  are  mixed,  how- 
ever, with  much  that  is  false ;  were  held  largely  as  theory  and  not 
as  rules  for  practice,  and  exerted  comparatively  little  influence  on 
the  lives  of  the  masses.  The  Chinese  quote  more  often  than  they 
observe  the  version  of  the  golden  rule  enunciated  by  Confucius; 
the  morals  of  Seneca,  the  brother  of  the  Gallio  who  "cared  for 
none  of  these  things,"  are  not  unlike  those  of  his  contemporary  the 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  47 


apostle  Paul,  yet  the  former  was  the  toady  of  Nero,  and  his  writ- 
ings are  known  only  to  scholars.  The  latter  counted  all  lost  for 
Christ,  and  is  remembered  and  copied,  not  for  his  ethics,  but  for 
the  divine  sanction  by  which  they  were  established.  There  is  much 
moral  wisdom  in  heathen  teachings,  but  more  inconsistency  and 
folly.  The  gospel,  /.  e.  the  good  neius  from  heaven,  is  found  only 
in  our  Scriptures.  Mr.  Graves  may  sneer  at  all  this.  He  cannot 
affirm  however  that  the  Jews  learned  of  the  Persians,  for  much  of 
the  Old  Testament  is  as  old  if  not  older  than  the  hymns  of  the 
Zend-Avesta,  and  all  of  it  dates  back  centuries  before  the  existing 
form  of  the  Persian  work.  Moreover  its  teachings  have  a  living 
and  irrefutable  illustration  in  the  history  and  condition  of  the  Jewish 
people. 

MITHRA. 

The  later  forms  of  religious  thought  in  Persia  developed  a 
kind  of  mediator  in  the  person  of  Mithra.  He  was  the  highest  of 
the  twenty-eight  second  class  divinities  of  the  ancient  Persian  pan- 
theon. He  was  god  of  the  day,  and,  in  a  higher  sense,  of  light, 
presiding  over  the  movements  of  the  principal  heavenly  bodies. 
The  meaning  of  his  name  is  a  friend.  He  was  the  protector  of 
man  in  this  life  and  in  the  next.  Omniscient  and  all-hearing,  he 
ran  his  course  unceasingly  between  earth  and  heaven,  and  with  his 
club  beat  off  Ahriman,  or  the  great  principle  of  evil  and  his  subor- 
dinates, the  daevas. 


48  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


His  mysteries  were  attended  by  fearful  initiatory  ordeals  and 
human  sacrifices  were  perhaps  connected  with  his  worship  in  some 
cases.  Mithraism  was  finally  suppressed  in  the  Roman  empire,  A. 
D.  378.  Mithra  was  represented  as  a  beautiful  youth  with  a  Phry- 
gian cap,  kneeling  upon  a  bull,  into  whose  neck  he  plunges  a  dag- 
ger. Allegorical  emblems  of  the  sun  surround  the  group,  the  bull 
being  at  the  same  time  attacked  by  dogs,  a  serpent  and  a  crab.  The 
mysteries  were  celebrated  at  the  spring  equinox,  March  25th,  and 
Mithra's  birthday  was  December  25th,  the  day  fixed  when  the 
Church  had  become  formal  and  borrowed  observances  from  heath- 
enism which  it  transformed  to  its  own  uses,  as  the  natal  day  of 
Christ.  This  change  involved  no  acceptance  of  the  original  rites. 
All  evidence  points  to  early  April  as  the  true  date  of  the  Saviour's 
birth.  There  is  no  doubt  that  Mithraism  exerted  some  influence  on 
Christianity,  after  the  latter  had  lost  its  primitive  simplicity,  but  it  h 
absurd  to  believe,  as  Dupuis  'endeavors  to  prove,  that  our  religion 
is  a  branch  of  Mithraism. 

In  this  pretence  Mr.  Higgins,  and  of  course  Mr.  Graves,  con- 
cur. The  most  they  can  claim  is  that  some  early  Christian  apol- 
ogists exaggerated  certain  points  of  resemblance  between  their  own 
faith  and  Mithraism,  in  order,  we  may  suppose,  to  help  on  the 
conversion  of  adherents  of  the  latter  cult.  The  Manichean  heret- 
ics endeavored  to  blend  IMithraism  with  Christianity.  For  a  time 
their  influence  was  extended,  but  they  soon  passed  into  obscurity. 
The  same  change  of  dogmas  is  obvious  in  Parseeism  as  in  Hindoo- 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  49 


ism.  In  early  days  Mithra  was  wholly  subordinate  to  Ormuzd. 
The  Zend-Avesta  describes  him  as  his  creature  and  tributary.  In 
the  early  Christian  centuries  he  was  declared  to  have  been  gen- 
erated by  the  sun  either  from  the  rock  or  soil — not  from  a  virgin, 
as  Mr.  Graves  affirms,  and  there  is  no  pretense  of  his  having  been 
crucified. 

SOME  LAST  WORDS. 

Mr.  Graves  also  describes  the  Chinese  sacred  books  which  are 
mere  treatises  on  practical  morality;  the  Koran  largely  borrowed 
from  the  Scriptures  and  which  apparently  confounds  Miriam,  the 
sister  of  Moses,  with  the  Virgin  Mary ;  the  book  of  Mormon  and 
several  minor  works  deemed  inspired  by  some,  but  says  nothing  of 
them  which  demands  attention,  and  I  therefore  pass  them  over,  to 
give  a  little  space  to  the  more  personal  characteristics  of  his  ' '  criti- 
cism." It  is  very  singular,  however,  that  he  does  not  include  in 
his  list  the  Chaldean  "  Genesis "  which  gives  an  account  of  the 
Creation,  the  fall  and  deluge  much  like  that  of  Moses,  yet  obvi- 
ously an  independent  and  somewhat  "heathenized  "  version  of  the 
same  great  sacred  tradition  handed  down  in  our  Scriptures. 

I  have  reviewed  the  theories  which  he  has  borrowed  from  abler 
men  than  himself,  and  shown  that  they  are  not  new,  and  that  they 
fail  to  prove  that  there  ever  were  '*  Sixteen  Crucified  Saviors" 
even  in  popular  belief.  His  attempted  establishment  of  coinci- 
dences in  their  doctrines  as  well  as  their  births  and  deaths,  being 
7 


50  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

founded  on  the  same  evidence  as  the  latter,  falls  also  to  the  ground. 
Of  his  own  additions  and  assumptions  it  is  difficult  to  say  whether 
they  most  expose  his  impudence  or  his  ignorance.  It  is  very  evi- 
dent that  he  is  not  competent  to  form  a  candid  judgment.  His 
treatment  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  shows  a  degree  of  pas- 
sion, a  wilful  blindness,  and  an  unfairness  that  defeats  itself. 
Granting  for  the  sake  of  argument  that  the  inspiration  of  the 
Scriptures  is  a  doubtful  matter,  they  are  venerable  for  age  and  con- 
tain much  that  is  beautiful  in  thought  and  expression.  Yet  our 
author  can  see  nothing  of  this,  but  detects  contradictions  and  ab- 
surdities everywhere.  He  has  prepared  a  long  list  of  discrepancies 
for  the  "Bibles,,"  and  promises  more  of  the  same  sort.  In  their 
compilation  he  has  evidently  been  indebted  to  a  pamphlet  filled 
with  passages  strained  and  garbled  for  a  similar  purpose,  that  was 
published  in  Boston  some  years  ago.  Did  he  ever  see  the  Rev. 
J.  W.  Haley's  masterly  exposure  of  that  brochure,  called  an  "  Ex- 
amination of  Alleged  Contradictions,"  etc.?  If  he  has  not,  I 
advise  him  to  procure  it,  before  going  further.  A  consultation  of 
the  Bible  itself  will  be  enough  to  show  that  many  of  his  so-called 
contradictions  do  not  exist.  There  are  obscure  and  seemingly  dis- 
cordant passages  in  the  Scriptures,  but  most  are  susceptible  of  ex- 
planation and  adjustment,  and  none  are  of  great  importance.  He 
has  decidedly  overshot  his  mark.  If  the  Bible  be  indeed  such  a 
nonsenical  and  immoral  book  as  he  contends,  it  is  strange  that  none 
but  men  of  loose  doctrines,  if  not  of  loose  lives,  have  discovered 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  51 

the  fact  ?  Will  Mr.  Graves  himself  be  hurt  by  a  close  observance 
of  the  ten  commandments?  Is  it  immoral  to  enjoin  purity  of 
thought  as  well  as  act  ?  We  have  never  seen  a  more  signal  exem- 
plification of  the  "  evil  heart  of  unbeUef "  than  in  the  man  who 
charges  the  Scriptures  with  indecency  yet  frequently  indulges  in 
profane  and  indecent  jests.  And  this  master  of  all  science  refers  in 
his  "  Bibles  "  to  Isis,  the  chief  female  deity  of  Egypt,  as  "  him!  " 
Mr.  Graves  believes  either  that  Christ  never  existed,  or  that  all 
that  was  supernatural  concerning  Him  is  falsehood.  He  ought  now 
to  be  convinced  that  Krishnaism  affords  him  no  ground  for  unbe- 
lief He  must  go  elsewhere  than  India  for  support  in  his  skepti- 
cism. Will  he  tell  us  how  the  unparalleled  character  of  the  Son  of 
Man  was  invented  ?  He  may  not  agree  with  Rousseau  who  pro- 
nounced it  God-like.  What  has  he  to  say  of  this  tribute  by  a  fel- 
low unbeliever,  of  rare  talent,  John  Stuart  Mill  ? 

"And  whatever  else  may  be  taken  away  from  us  by  rational  criticism, 
•Christ  is  still  left,  an  unique  figure,  not  more  unlike  all  his  precursors  than 
all  his  followers,  even  those  who  had  the  direct  benefit  of  his  teachings. 
Who  among  his  disciples,  or  among  the  proselytes,  was  capable  of  inventing 
the  sayings  ascribed  to  Jesus,  or  of  imagining  the  life  and  character  revealed 
in  the  gospel?  Certainly  not  the  fishermen  ofGallilee;  as  certainly  not  St. 
Paul,  whose  character  and  idiosyncracies  were  of  a  totally  different  sort;  still 
less  the  early  Christian  writers,  in  whom  nothing  is  more  evident  than  that 
the  good  which  was  in  them  was  all  derived,  as  they  all  profess  that  it  was 
•derived  from  the  higher  source." 

Mr.  Graves  does  not  believe  in  prophecy.  He  asserts  that 
Tyre  wa^  not  taken  by  Nebuchadnezzer  as  predicted.     That  is  a 


52  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


point  disputed  among  scholars.  Has  he  ever  read  Volney's  descrip- 
tion of  the  modern  village  on  its  site,  in  which  that  unbeliever 
unconsciously,  we  suppose,  used  about  the  exact  words  of  scripture 
in  saying  he  saw  only  a  k\v  rocks  covered  witli  fishermen's  nets. 
He  tries  to  explain  away  the  destruction  of  Babylon  by  the  fact  that 
a  small  setdement  exists  near  by.  He  does  not  grapple,  however, 
with  the  fifty-third  chapter  of  Isaiah  and  its  announcement  that  the 
man  of  sorrows  should  "make  his  grave  with  the  wicked  and  with 
the  rich  in  his  death ;"  unintelligible  until  centuries  later,  when 
Christ,  after  being  crucified  between  two  thieves,  was  laid  in  the 
sepulchre  of  Joseph  of  Arimathea.  He  is  silent  regarding  the  pre- 
dicted dispersion  of  the  Jews.  He  omits  to  notice  the  prediction 
that  Bethlehem  should  be  the  birthplace  of  the  Messiah.  I  might 
greatly  extend  this  list,  but  I  have  said  enough  on  this  point. 

He  limits  the  proof  of  Christ's  existence  pretty  much  to  the 
statement  of  Tacitus  that  Christ  was  crucified  under  Pontius  Pilate. 
This  is  sufficient  in  itself,  and  pronounced  unimpeachable  by 
Gibbon,  though  assailed  by  the  dishonest  Taylor.  But  this  is  not 
all.  Martial,  Suetonius  and  Pliny  bear  witness  to  early  Christianity 
or  its  founder.  The  text  of  Josephus,  which  Mr.  Graves  sets  aside 
as  wholly  spurious,  is  held  by  Gieseler  and  other  German  historians 
to  be  only  pardally  interpolated;  and  then  Josephus  certainly  writes 
of  John  the  Baptist,  and  confirms  various  statements  in  Acts.  The 
Roman  catacombs  afford  a  vast  mass  of  evidence  in  favor  of  the 
authenticity  of  the  early  Christian  records.     Mr.  Graves  himself  in 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic. 


53 


one  place  admits  on  Lardner's  testimony  that  the  gospels  were 
written  a  few  years  after  the  death  of  Christ,  while  elsewhere  he 
repeats  the  silly  story  that  the  New  Testament  books  were  first  voted 
inspired  at  the  Council  of  Nice,  about  A.  D.  325.  Is  he  ignorant 
of  the  fact  that  Irenaeus,  A.  D.  185,  declared  that  there  were  four 
gospels;  that  he  and  his  contemporary,  TertuUian,  quote  or  refer  to 
the  gospels  about  four  hundred  times,  and  that  two-thirds  of  the 
New  Testament  is  found  cited  in  the  works  of  Origen,  A.  D.  185  to 
254?  Theophilus,  A.  D.  169,  composed  a  commentary  on  the  four 
gospels.  The  gospel  of  Matthew  was  circulated  in  India  between 
175  and  190.  Tae  Muratorian  Canon,  about  170,  which  is  mutil- 
ated at  the  beginning,  after  an  apparent  reference  to  Mark,  men- 
tions Luke  as  the  third,  and  John  as  the  fourth  book.  The  epistle 
of  the  Churches  of  Lyons  and  Vienna  177,  quotes  from  Luke,  and 
from  the  gospel  and  first  epistle  of  John.  In  the  writings  of  Justin 
Martyr,  Hermas  and  Barnabas,  running  back  to  the  beginning  of 
the  second  century,  there  are  frequent  New  Testament  passages. 
In  those  of  Clement,  of  Rome,  born  about  the  time  of  the  crucifix- 
ion, are  many  expressions  corresponding  with  the  utterances  of  the 
first  three  gospels.  The  voting  of  which  our  author  makes  so  much, 
was  the  due  attestation  of  the  writings  which  had  always  been  recog- 
nized as  canonical,  in  order  that  the  apocryphal  imitations  might 
be  assigned  their  proper  place. 

Paul  in  the   fifteenth   chapter  of  first  Corinthians,  an  epistle 
which  the  most  skeptical  German  writers  have  been  compelled  to 


54  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

admit  as  genuine,  declares  that  there  still  survived  many  of  five 
hundred  Christians  who  had  seen  Christ  after  his  resurrection.  The 
story  might  be  incredible,  but  it  was  believed;  credited  in  the  face 
of  persecution,  infamy  and  death.  Would  men  have  rushed  by 
hundreds  and  thousands  to  certain  destruction  if  they  had  not  had 
reason  for  their  faith  ? 

Mr.  Graves  does  not  believe  in  miracles,  unless  in  the  wretched 
tricks  of  his  spiritualistic  confreres,  yet  all  the  early  adversaries  of 
Christianity,  heathen  as  well  as  Jewish,  admitted  that  Christ  worked 
them.  They  ascribed  them  to  magic  and  other  absurd  causes,  but 
the  Talmud,  Celsus,  Porphyry  and  Julian  were  all  in  accord  on  this 
point.  Mr.  Graves  may  prefer  the  revelations  of  mediums  and  rap- 
pers, but  the  majority  of  those  who  have  been  born  to  the  privileges. 
of  Christendom  and  many  who  listen  to  the  teachings  of  the  mis- 
sionaries whicli  Christendom  sends  forth,  will  find  consolation  in 
life  and  support  in  death  from  the  old,  old  story.  A  recent  traveler 
in  heathen  lands  says  he  found  no  new  temples  —  the  superstitions 
that  built  them  are  going  to  decay,  and  the  edifices  will,  sooner  or 
later,  follow  them.  Christianity,  on  the  other  hand,  in  spite  of  the 
dissensions,  the  follies,  the  coldness  and  the  unfaithfulness  of  its 
followers,  is  still  living,  still  spreading,  and  will  grow  brighter  and 
purer  until  there  comes  to  it  the  light  of  the  perfect  day. 

J.   T.   P. 

Cincinnati,  Jan.  25th,  1879. 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  55 


MR.  GRAVES'  REPLY. 

A      REVIEWER      R^iVIEWED. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Telegram  : 

When  I  learned  that  an  extensive  review  of  my  works  was  to 
appear  in  the  Telegram,  I  conjectured  that  it  would  be  from  the 
pen  of  some  bigoted  sectarian,  whose  creed  had  been  cast  in  some 
theological  institution,  and  that  it  would  consist  of  a  string  of  dog- 
matic assertions,  without  much  evidence,  or  the  citation  of  histori- 
cal authorities.  But  I  confess  myself  happily  disappointed.  It  is 
for  the  most  part  one  of  the  most  fair,  candid,  and  apparently 
truth-seeking  criticisms  I  have  ever  seen  from  the  pen  of  a  Chris- 
tian writer.  And  I  feel  certain  that  if  we  do  not  agree  in  our 
conclusions  as  the  result  of  our  investigations,  we  can  agree  on 
friendly  terms  to  disagree.  It  is  true,  he  indulges  in  one  or  two 
cases  in  rather  unfriendly  language,  and  makes  rather  unfriendly 
charges.  But  if  he  has  any  grounds  for  this,  he  will  not  have  when 
he  reads  my  defense  and  explanation.  He  seems  to  call  in  ques- 
tion my  ''scholastic  attainments,"  my  respect  for  the  truth,  and 
my  mofal  reputation,  or  moral  character.  As  for  my  scholastic 
attainments,  I  beg  leave  to  say  that  I  never  claimed  to  attain  to 
any  eminence  in  scholarship,  having  never  spent  a  day  in  my  life 
in  a  college  as  a  student.  I  graduated  in  a  log  hut  about  ten  feet 
high,  roofed  with  poles  and  clapboards.  With  respect  to  my 
character  for  truthfulness,  I  will  only  say  that  there  are  men  in  the 


56  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

city  of  Richmond  and  vicinity  who  have  known  me  for  more  than 
fifty  years,  and  if  any  of  them  have  ever  suspicioned  me  of  being 
guilty  of  a  willful  departure  from  the  truth,  I  have  never  learned 
the  fact.  As  for  my  character  in  other  respects,  as  shown  by  my 
practical  life,  I  will  assume  the  liberty  to  say  that  I  am  willing  to 
have  it  compared  with  that  of  my  reviewer,  or  any  clergyman  in 
the  United  States,  and  promise  to  show  as  clear  a  record.  An  in- 
vestigation of  my  practical  life  will  show  that  I  have  lead  an  honest 
and  industrious  Hfe,  and  have  been  strictly  temperate  in  my  habits. 
I  never,  knowingly,  wronged  a  man  out  of  a  dollar ;  never  had  a 
fight,  nor  even  serious  quarrel,  with  any  person ;  never  indulged 
in  profane  swearing;  never  got  drunk,  nor  swallowed  a  dram  of 
any  kind  of  intoxicating  liquors,  nor  swallowed  enough  of  intoxi- 
cating beverages  of  any  kind,  or  of  all  kinds  put  together,  to  make 
a  dram.  And  lastly,  I  never  took  but  one  chew  of  tobacco  in  my 
life,  and  that  I  repented  of  in  less  than  a  half  an  hour,  and  I 
promised  my  God  if  I  lived  through  it  I  would  never  take  another. 
And  that  promise  I  have  never  broken.  If  my  reviewer  can  pre- 
sent or  exhibit  a  better  practical  life  than  this,  he  will  command  my 
highest  esteem  as  a  true,  moral  man,  and  I  have  no  reason  to 
doubt  but  that  he  is  such  a  man,  if  he  does  not  award  me  the  same 
honor.  As  for  reputation,  in  the  popular  sense,  I  never  aspired 
for  popular  favor.  I  never  courted  either  popularity  or  notoriety  ; 
and  if  I  had,  my  personal  appearance  would  have  been  a  bar  in 
the  way  of  attaining  it.     I  have  led  such  an  obscure  life,  and  am 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic,  57 


so  unprepossessing  in  my  personal  appearance,  that  perhaps,  as  the 
editor  suggests,  I  am  better  known  at  home  than  abroad.  These 
things  have  not  escaped   my   observation.      Perhaps;  I  might  say 


with  Tom : 


*'  Says  Dick  to  Tom  your  character  is  bad, 
I've  heard  it  from  many. 
You  lie,  said  Tom, 
I  never  had  any." 

Perhaps,  I  have  not  much  character  or  reputation  of  any  kind. 
My  main  object  has  been  to  lead  an  honest,  useful,  and  truthful 
life,  whatever  evidence  my  reviewer  may  suppose  he  has  found  to 
the  contrary.  And  I  admit,  he  does  cite  one  case  which  does 
seemingly  sustain  his  charge  of  misrepresentations  in  quoting  his- 
tory— one  case  of  alteration  in  the  four  thousand  citations  which  I 
have  made — the  case  of  Gibbon.  But  this  matter  I  will  explain 
sstisfactorily  when  I  come  to  it.  With  this  much  preface  and  per- 
sonal defense  allow  me  to  say  I  am  glad  the  review  has  been  Avritten 
.and  published,  because  it  presents  the  popular  church  view  of  the 
question,  which  has  been  presented  substantially  to  the  public  a 
hundred  times  before,  by  different  writers,  and  thus  furnishes  the 
readers  of  the  Telegram  an  opportunity  of  seeing  and  examining, 
{when  collated  with  my  version  of  the  matter)  both  sides  of  the 
•question.  And  I  am  perfecdy  willing  to  rest  the  case  with  the  ver- 
dict of  the  reading  public,  knowing  that  truth  will  triumph  sooner 
or  later.  And  here  allow  me  to  suggest,  that  it  is  a  matter  of  import- 
ance that  we  should    know    what  we   are   trying  to  discuss,   and 


58  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

clearly  understand  the  ground  of  difference  between  us.  Other- 
wise, we  may  in  our  ignorance  of  each  other's  views  and  positions, 
waste  much  time  and  paper  in  arguing  points  we  are  both  agreed 
on.  And,  this  I  observe,  my  honest  and  gentlemanly  reviewer  has 
inadvertently  done. 

A  large  portion  of  his  article  is  occupied  in  arguing  points  that 
I  have  never  doubted  or  disputed.  And  consequently,  my  reply 
will  not  occupy  the  space  in  the  Telegj'am  which  his  article  does, 
while  at  the  same  time  I  shall  notice  every  point  of  any  import- 
ance, on  which  we  differ.  I  cannot  escape  the  conviction  that  he 
has  not  read  my  books  very  thoroughly,  as  he  charges  me,  in  some 
cases,  with  omitting  what  I  have  inserted  with  great  care,  and  in 
other  cases  of  believing  or  disbelieving,  what  I  have  not  only  de- 
nied, but  attempted  to  disprove.  For  example,  he  says:  "Mr. 
Graves  does  not  believe  in  prophecy."  Here  is  a  most  signal 
blunder.  I  have  repeatedly,  in  both  my  large  works  avowed  my 
belief  in  prophecy,  and  cited  many  examples  of  prophecy  and 
their  literal  fulfillment  "  to  the  very  letter,"  in  both  works.  For 
proof,  see  page  298,  of  "The  Sixteen  Saviors,"  and  i22d  of 
"The  Bible  of  Bibles."     Here,  then,  is  one  point  settled. 

Again,  after  representing  me  as  being  an  enemy  of  the  Bible 
and  "berating  Christianity,"  he  says:  "The  Bible  contains  much 
that  is  beautiful  in  thought  and  expression.  Yet  Mr.  Graves  can 
see  nothing  of  this."  Here  is  another  serious  mistake.  On  page 
28  of  "The  Bible  of  Bibles,'"  he  will  find  the  following  language: 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  59. 


"  There  are  in  all  Bibles  beautiful  veins  of  thought  coursing  through 
their  pages,  and  they  contain  many  moral  precepts,  which  are  in 
their  nature,  elevating  and  ennobling,  and,  which  if  i)ractically  lived 
up  to,  would  do  much  toward  improving  the  morals  of  the  people 
and  enhancing  their  happiness."  And  on  page  64  it  is  stated  with 
respect  to  the  Christian  Bible,  that,  ' '  There  is  scarcely  a  book,  or 
even  a  chapter  in  the  whole  Bible,  that  does  not  evince  a  spirit  of 
religious  devotion,  and  an  effort  for  the  right,  and  the  prophets 
often  breathed  forth  a  spirit  of  the  most  elevated  poetry."  And 
elsewhere,  it  is  stated  that  the  Bible  is  a  very  useful  book  in  its 
place,  and  that  I  have  no  objection  to  urge  against  the  Bible,  but 
only  to  the  improper  use  to  which  it  is  applied,  etc. 

Now,  this  certainly  does  not  evince  a  spirit  of  hatred  for  the 
Bible,  as  my  reviewer  represents.  Having  incidentally  noticed  these 
points,  I  will  now  try  to  follow  my  reviewer  in  regular  order.  He 
faults  me  for  my  scholarship,  because  I  spell  some  words  differently 
from  some  of  the  authors  which  he  has  read,  and  also  for  using 
wrong  words.  But  here  he  commits  several  rather  laughable 
blunders  himself  in  his  efforts  to  correct  me.  Cobb,  says  :  "  Before 
a  person  assumes  the  office  of  teacher  or  critic,  he  should  be  certain 
he  has  studied  the  subject  far  enough  to  dispel  his  own  ignorance." 

He  attempts  to  correct  me  for  using  the  word  "exposition" 
and  says  I  mean  ''exposure."  But  here  he  is  mistaken,  I  mean 
exactly  what  I  say.  Webster,  Walker  and  Worcester  all  define 
"exposition"  to  mean  "  the  act  of  exposing,"  and  that  was  exactly 


6o  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


what  I  was  attempting  to  do.  His  criticisms  with  respect  to  spelUng 
foreign  and  Oriental  names  leads  me  to  conclude  that  his  reading  of 
history  has  not  been  as  extensive  as  I  at  first  supposed.  His  read- 
ing seems  to  have  been  confined  to  a  few  favorite  authors,  and 
some  of  them,  not  very  reliable.  Otherwise  he  would  know,  and 
should  know,  that  there  is  no  uniform  standard  for  spelling  scarcely 
any  foreign  names.  Take  for  example,  the  God  of  the  Hindoos, 
whom  he  calls  Krishna,  and  assumes  this  is  correct.  And  yet 
some  of  the  missionaries  and  Oriental  scholars,  who  have  lived  in 
that  country  and  studied  their  language,  spell  the  word  Kreshna, 
or  Kreeshna,  and  others  Krishnoo,  and  others  again  Chrishna  and  so 
on.  There  are  not  less  than  seven  ways  of  spelling  this  word.  And 
authors  differ  in  their  mode  of  spelling  other  foreign  names  in  the 
same  way.  He  says  that  Quexalcote  should  be  Quetzalcoatl.  But 
I  prefer  the  English,  while  he  gives  the  Aztec  mode  of  spelling  the 
word.  It  appears  he  is  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  the  word  has  been 
translated.  Again  he  says,  the  Celtic  God  whom  I  call  Eros,  "is 
not  Eros  but  Esus."  But  I  prefer  to  take  that  standard  authority, 
the  New  American  Cyclopedia,  for  authority  in  the  case,  which 
•declares  it  was  Eros,  unless  he  can  show,  he  has  got  ahead  of  that 
work,  written  by  and  endorsed  by  all  the  learned  men  of  the  age 
Fleurbach  is  a  typograhical  error.  I  have  the  work  and  have 
seen  the  name  a  hundred  times,  and  know  how  it  should  be  spelled. 
He  certainly  commits  a  serious  blunder  in  leaviq^  out  a  syllable 
when  he  uses    the    word    Bahavatgita.     I    have    consulted    eleven 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  6i 


authors,  and  they  all  spell  it  Baghavatgita,  as  I  have  in  my  books. 
And  I  might  cite  other  examples  to  show  that  his  philological  wis- 
dom is  hardly  competent  to  criticise  and  correct  scholarship.  And 
I  might  say  of  him  as  he  says  of  me,  "he  is  not  much  of  a 
philologist.'' 

But  I  must  hasten  to  more  important  points.  He  wades 
through  an  almost  interminable  sea  of  Oriental  legends  and  traditions 
to  show  that  my  crucified  gods  all  died  a  natural  death,  except 
those,  perhaps,  who  were  mere  fabulous  beings.  But  all  this  is 
a  work  of  supererogation,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned.  I  admit  the 
whole  of  this  detail  substantially.  It  contains  no  new  ideas  and  no 
new  facts.  The  same  or  a  similar  history  of  those  gods,  can  be 
found  in  almost  any  common  work  on  heathen  mythology.  I  have 
nine  authors  who  relate  substantially  the  same  history  of  those  gods 
my  reviewer  has  written  out.  Our  libraries  are  well  supplied  with 
works  of  this  character,  which  relate  pretty  much  the  same  story  of 
these  Oriental  gods.  I  not  only  admit  this,  but  I  also  admit  they 
may  be  as  reliable  as  the  history  of  them,  which  I  have  presented  in 
"The  World's  Sixteen  Crucified  Saviors."  That  is  for  the  authors 
to  settle,  and  not  for  me.  The  secret  of  the  whole  matter  is;  two 
very  popular  and  learned  authors,  who  have  investigated  and 
studied  the  subject  more  critically  than  any  other  writers,  who  ever 
wrote  on  the  subject,  claim  to  be  able  to  throw  new  light  on  the 
subject.  They  claim,  just  as  Max  Muller  does,  with  respect  to  the 
Hindoo  vedas,  to  have  discovered  that  changes  and  alterations  or 


62  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


omissions  were  made  many  years  ago  in  the  histories  of  the  Oriental 
gods,  by  which  some  of  the  most  important  events  of  their  Uves 
were  either  left  out  or  materially  altered.  Those  two  avithors  are 
Alexander  Dow  and  Sir  Godfrey  Higgins.  (All  the  English  writers 
I  have  seen  prefix  Sir  to  his  name,  my  critic  to  the  contrary 
notwithstanding) . 

Higgins,  who  devoted  twenty  years  to  the  investigation  of  the 
subject,  presents  an  imposing  array  of  facts  to  prove  that  an  impor- 
tant chapter  in  the  history  of  many  of  the  Oriental  gods^  being 
written  by  interested  representatives  of  other  religions,  was  left  out, 
either  accidentally,  or  from  interested  motives.  He  cites  one  very 
striking  case  in  proof  and  illustration,  which  is  made  a  matter  of 
record,  by  the  authority  of  the  British  parliament.  A  deputation 
which  was  sent  out  by  the  British  to  examine  the  laws,  polity,  and 
political  and  religious  institutions  of  India  and  other  Oriental  coun- 
tries, learning  in  India,  the  curious  story  of  their  incarnate  god, 
Chrishna,  they  made  notes  of  it  in  their  report.  But  as  these  notes 
were  thrown  together  hastily  without  any  arrangement,  on  leaving 
the  country,  they  placed  them  in  the  hands  of  a  learned  Roman 
Catholic  bishoj^,  at  Calcutta,  with  instructions  to  arrange  them  to- 
gether in  chronological  order,  and  send  them  to  London.  But  it 
was  found,  when  they  came  to  be  examined,  after  they  had  reached 
that  city,  that  they  had  been  materially  altered  —  whole  chapters 
were  missing,  and  the  most  important  events  of  his  life,  such  as  his 
immaculate  conception,  his  crucifixion,  resurrection,  ascension,  etc., 
were  entirely  left  out.     It  was  so  seriously  mutilated  that  the  com- 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  63 


-mittee  would  not  endorse  it.  And  Mr.  Higgins  says  that  the 
Roman  CathoHcs  have  perpetrated  similar  frauds  with  respect  to 
other  rehgions.  And  these  frauds  being  committed  before  the  his- 
tories of  some  gods,  now  in  circulation,  were  written,  we  conse- 
quently have  not  the  full  history  of  their  fabulous  lives,  as  most,  if 
not  all  of  them  must  be  supposed  to  be. 

My  critic  could  have  saved  all  the  labor  in  attempting  to  show 
those  gods  were  not  crucified  by  simply  reading  the  note  appended 
to  the  chapter  on  crucifixions  in  ''The  World's  Sixteen  Crucified 
:Saviors,"  page  119,  where  I  have  stated:  "There  is  much  ground 
to  doubt  whether  any  of  those  crucifixions  ever  took  place,  or  were 
•ever  realized  as  actual  occurrences.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that 
■a  great  deal  of  ancient  history  is  mere  fable.  Many  things  related 
as  actual  occurrences  were  designed  for  mere  symbols.  Many  of 
the  ancient  Christians  argued  that  this  was  true  of  even  Jesus  Christ 
—  that  some  of  the  principal  events  recorded  in  his  life  Avere  never 
realized  as  actual  occurrences,  and  were  not  intended  to  be  so  un- 
derstood, but  were  designed  to  be  understood  in  some  spiritual 
sense." 

The  moral  lesson  designed  to  be  taught  by  the  chapter  on 
crucifixions  (as  stated  in  my  note,  page  119,)  is  simply  that  the 
belief  or  idea  of  the  crucifixion  of  gods  was  prevalent  in  various 
Oriental  countries  long  before  the  reported  crucifixion  of  Christ,  and 
whether  fact  or  fiction,  is  a  matter  of  no  importance,  if  we  could 
-determine.     It  would  not  affect  my  position  in  the  least,  if  it  could 


64  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

be  shown  that  the  gods  were  all  fabulous  beings,  (as  many  of  them 
probably  were,)  and  that  the  story  of  their  crucifixions  were  sheer 
fabrications.  It  was  not  the  fact,  but  the  mere  conception  of  the 
crucifixion  of  gods,  that  I  aimed  to  establish.  Some  of  them^ 
which  were  stated  as  mere  fiction,  came  to  be  looked  upon  by  many 
as  a  matter  of  fact.  It  may  be  asked  if  I  accept  these  stories  of 
crucifixion  as  fiction,  why  I  have  related  them  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
and  assigned  a  date  for  their  occurrence  ?  That  question  is  easily 
answered.  My  note  shows  that  it  was  the  belief  of  their  disciples, 
and  not  my  own,  I  was  giving.  I  have  assumed  no  more  license 
than  writers  on  romance  always  do  —  that  of  relating  imaginary 
events  as  real.  I  have  nowhere  stated  that  I  accept  or  endorse  the 
cases  of  crucifixions  as  facts.  I  have  stated  on  page  ii8,  that  I  be- 
lieve they  were  invented,  and  for  what  purpose  they  were  invented. 
They  are  designed  to  teach  an  important  moral  lesson. 

My  learned  critic  ridicules  the  idea  of  Ixion  having  been  cruci- 
fied as  an  actual  occurrence.  And  so  do  I.  And  yet  it  is  apparently 
related  as  a  matter  of  fact,  with  a  spiritual  significance.  In  some 
cases,  other  beings  were  crucified  with  the  gods  —  one  being  ar- 
ranged on  each  side,  as  in  the  case  of  Christ.  This  also  has  a 
symbolical  or  spiritual  signification. 

Take  for  example,  the  Celtic  story  of  a  god  being  crucified 
with  a  lamb  on  one  side  and  an  elephant  on  the  other.  The  ele- 
phant was  designed  to  represent  the  magnitude  of  the  sins 
of    the    world,    being   the  largest   animal   then    and  there   known, 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  65 

while  the  lamb  was  designed  to  represent  the  innocency  of  the  vic- 
tim— /.  ^.,  the  god  offered  up.  Here  we  have  "the  lamb  of  God 
taking  away  the  sins  of  the  world."  Here  is  another  spiritual  les- 
son. And  whether  the  god  was  crucified  or  not,  does  not  in  the 
least  affect  the  moral  of  the  story. 

Of  course  I  do  not  believe  any  more  than  he  does  that  a  lamb 
or  an  elephant,  or  that  Apis  (which  I  learned  when  a  boy,  is  the 
Latin  term  for  bull),  was  ever  crucified,  even  though  millions  in 
past  ages  may  have  believed  it. 

My  learned  and  gentlemanly  critic  says,  "  Chrishna  was  not 
crucified,  but  died  a  natural  death  at  the  age  of  about  eighty." 
That  may  be,  but  why  does  he  say  so  ?  Because  he  has  found  the 
statement  in  some  author  which  he  has  read !  But  will  he  be  as 
reasonable  with  respect  to  Christ,  whom  some,  even  Christian  au- 
thors, and  a  number  of  the  early  Christian  churches  and  thousands 
of  the  most  pious  and  devout  primitive  Christians,  stoutly  main- 
tained was  never  crucified !  Even  that  author  whom  he  quotes 
himself  as  being  a  reliable  and  unimpeachable  authority,  (Ireneus), 
denies  he  was  ever  crucified.  This  learned  and  pious  bishop  de- 
clared upon  the  authority  of  the  martyr,  Polycarp,  who  claimed  to 
have  got  it  from  St.  John  and  the  elders  of  Asia,  that  Christ  was 
not  crucified,  but  lived  to  the  age  of  about  fifty.  Here,  then,  are 
two  accounts  of  Christ,  as  well  as  of  Chrishna.  If  he  accepts  the 
story  of  the  crucifixion  of  one,  why  not  the  other  ?  or  if  he  rejects 
that  of  Chrishna,  why  not  that  of  Christ,  also — seeing  we  have  con- 
9 


66  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


tradictory  stories  in  both  cases.  This  brings  me  to  notice  the  very- 
senseless  expedient  which  he  drags  in  to  prove  that  the  story  of 
Chrishna  is  a  mere  transcript  of  that  of  Christ. 

Of  all  the  ridiculous  and  silly  subterfuges  ever  invented  to  save 
a  sinking  cause,  and  proving  the  truth  of  the  proverb,  ''that  drown- 
ing men  will  catch  at  straws,"  that  of  dragging  the  ancient  Hindoo 
god,  Chrishna,  down  into  the  sixth  century  of  the  Christian  era,  is 
one  of  the  most  laughable,  if  not  tragical,  ever  on  put  record.  I 
hope  my  respectable  critic  will  not  accept  this  as  personal.  It  is 
not  intended  for  him.  He  did  not  invent  the  story.  It  was  in- 
vented long  before  he  was  born,  by  an  arrogant,  self-conceited,  pe- 
dantic student  of  divinity,  by  the  name  of  Richard  Bently,  whom 
my  critic  calls  an  astronomer  (God  save  the  mark !  )  I  have  never 
seen  a  work  on  astronomy  that  so  much  as  mentions  his  name.  He 
resorted  to  the  silly  farce  of  attempting  to  show  by  the  senseless 
rules  of  astrology,  that  the  planets  point  to  the  six  hundredth  year 
of  the  Christian  era  as  the  time  of  Chrishna's  birth,  an  assumption 
so  foolish  and  senseless  that  his  own  friends  laughed  at  him,  and 
finally  laughed  him  out  of  it,  and  he  gave  it  up.  It  is  so  thin  that 
I  was  astonished  when  I  found  that  my  learned  critic  is  disposed  to 
endorse  it,  and  it  almost  compelled  me  to  doubt  his  good  sense,  or 
else  his  honesty.  The  evidence  is  so  voluminous  to  prove  that 
Chrishna  figured  in  history  long  before  the  birth  of  Christ,  that  any 
person  who  should  express  a  doubt  of  it  in  the  presence  of  any  Ori- 
ental scholar,  outside  of  the  Christian  ranks,  would  be   laughed  at. 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  67 

Another  very  weak  expedient  which  my  critic  drags  in  as  evi- 
dence, that  the  hfe  of  Chrishna  was  borrowed  from  that  of  Christ, 
is  the  fooHsh  story  that  Max  Miiller  has  found  a  few  forged  leaves 
in  one  of  the  vedas.  (Muller  he  spells  Mueller,  but  the  New  Cy- 
■clopedia,  the  best  authority  in  the  world,  spells  it  Muller.  Here  he 
is  beat  again).  I  call  this  story  foolish,  because  even  if  true,  it  can 
-amount  to  nothing. 

When  Horace  Greeley  asserted  that  all  the  doctrines  of  Chris- 
tianity can  be  found  in  the  Hindoo  vedas,  (which  the  Rev.  D.  O. 
Allen,  twenty-five  years  a  Christian  missionary  in  India,  admits  to 
be  at  least  1000  years  older  than  Christianity)  he  did  not  mean  it 
could  all  be  found  in  one  volume  of  the  vedas.  They  are  scat- 
tered through  the  five  volumes.  And  my  456  striking  analogies  in 
the  life  and  doctrines  of  Christ  and  Chrishna  are  not  the  half  of 
them  taken  from  the  vedas,  but  from  the  other  Hindoo  books,  and 
from  the  various  volumes  of  the  New  American  Cyclopedia,  much 
l)etter  authority  than  Max  Muller,  professor  in  the  old  English 
•orthodox  university  of  Oxford. 

Sir  William  Jones,  whom  the  New  American  Encyclopedia 
pronounces  the  greatest  linguist  and  Oriental  scholar  ever  known, 
and  who  was  at  the  same  time  a  devout  Christian,  and  who  lived 
and  died  in  India,  obtained  a  more  critical  and  profound  knowledge 
■of  the  Hindoo  religion  than  any  other  scholar  who  ever  wrote  on 
the  subject.  We  will  hear  what  he  says  on  the  subject.  He  says, 
"*'  that  the  name  of  Chrishna  and  the  whole  outline  of  his  history 


68  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

were  long  anterior  to  the  time  of  our  Savior,  and  probably  to  the 
time  of  Homer,  we  know  very  certainly."  (Asiat.  Res.  Volume 
I  St,  page  254).  Now  mark,  he  says.  "  we  know  very  certainly" 
— no  guess  about  it.  To  suppose  that  he  was  deceived  in  the  mat- 
ter by  a  few  false  pages  of  history  stuck  in  one  of  the  vedas  would 
be  the  climax  of  nonsense,  for  the  vedas  proper,  don't  say  a  word 
about  this  god.  It  is  found  in  other  sacred  books,  and  not  only  in 
the  books,  but  engraved  and  inscribed  on  old  time-worn  rocks, 
much  older  than  the  books,  and  whom  all  the  Oriental  scholars  who- 
ever examined  them,  I  believe,  pronounce  much  older  than  Chris- 
tianity. 

When  that  English  writer,  Mr.  Moore,  wrote  his  work  called 
"The  Hindoo  Pantheon,"  in  which  he  inserted  a  great  many  dravv^- 
ings,  representing  the  crucifixion  of  the  god  Chrishna,  Avith  the 
cross  and  the  print  of  the  nails  in  his  hands  and  feet,  made  by 
nailing  him  to  the  cross,  also  the  mark  of  the  spear  in  his  side — all 
drawn  from  sculptured  drawings,  found  on  some  of  the  oldest- 
looking  rocks  and  rock  temples  in  India,  none  of  the  Christian 
professors,  who  labored  so  hard  with  him  to  keep  him  from  pub- 
lishing these  facts,  ever  denied  but  that  they  were  much  older 
than  Christianity,  or  they  would  not  have  opposed  it.  They  were 
not  drawn  from  the  vedas  or  any  other  books,  but  from  solid  por- 
phyry rock,  bearing  evidence  of  being  several  thousand  years  old. 
That  great  orthodox  historian,  Mr.  Goodrich,  puts  the  quietus  on 
this  matter,  and  settles  the  question  forever,  by  telling  us  that  the 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  69 

first  Christians  and  Christian  missionaries  who  entered  India  and 
China,  were  very  much  astonished  to  find  a  religion  so  strikingly 
similar  to  their  own  in  both  of  those  countries,  and  could  only  ac- 
count for  it  by  supposing  that  the  devil  anticipating  the  coming  of 
Christ,  got  out  a  system  of  religion  just  like  his.  That  is,  he  got 
out  the  second  edition  of  the  gospel  plan  of  salvation  before  the 
first  edition  had  been  published,  which  certainly  proves  him  to  be 
a  very  smart  chap,  thus  to  outwit  God  Almighty. 

Now,  as  this  occurred  long  before  the  alleged  alterations  in  the 
Hindoo  sacred  books,  it  settles  the  matter  forever  as  to  their  being 
forged,  and  especially  in  the  case  of  China,  where  no  alterations  are 
•claimed  to  have  been  made.  And  hundreds  of  other  similar  facts 
might  be  cited  if  I  had  room  for  them,  to  prove  the  superlative  non- 
sense of  trying  to  make  out  that  the  Hindoos  borrowed  their  relig- 
ion from  the  Christian  gospels.  It  is  too  thin.-  Even  that  bigoted 
misssionary,  D.  O.  Allen,  who  lived  among  them  twenty-five  years, 
don't  claim  it. 

I  come  now   to   notice  an  alleged  contradiction  in  one  of  my 
books,  with  respect  to  loving  enemies.      First  statement: — 
"Forgive  thy  foes,  nor  that  alone, 

Their  evil  deeds  with  good  repay ; 
Fill  those  with  joy  who  leave  thee  none, 
And  kiss  the  hand   upraised   to  slay." 

Second  statement:  "No  man  ever  did  love  an  enemy.  It  is 
a  moral  impossibility,  as  much  so  as  to  love  bitter  or  nauseating 
food."     It  seems  strange,  passing  strange,  that  any  person  can  see 


70  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


any  contradiction  in  these  two  statements.  The  first  statement 
says  not  a  word  about  loving  enemies.  It  speaks  of  forgiving  them, 
filling  them  with  joy,  repaying  their  evil  deeds  with  kindness  or 
kind  treatment,  the  very  acts  I  have  recommended  in  both  of  my 
books,  and  the  very  acts  I  have  recommended  as  a  substitute  for 
loving  enemies  in  the  very  next  sentence  after  the  statement  that 
it  is  impossible  to  love  them ;  which  my  critic  should  have  been 
fair  enough  to  have  quoted.  "Treat  thine  enemy  kindly  and 
thus  make  him  a  friend,"  is  my  advice,  which  is  the  sentiment  I 
have  so  highly  commended  in  the  Persian  moral  system.  'MVhen 
I  say  "they gave  utterance  to  the  loftiest  sentiment  that  ever  issued 
from  human  lips,"  I  make  no  allusion  to  their  loving  enemies,  for 
they  say  nothing  about  it.  And  let  it  be  understood,  it  was  not  the 
feeling  that  prompted  Christ  to  enjoin  love  to  enemies  that  I  criti- 
cised, but  the  philosophy.  The  feeling  may  be  a  noble  one,  and 
yet  unphilosophical  and  impracticable  of  execution.  I  did  not 
mean  to  show  that  Christ  was  not  a  philanthropist,  but  that  he  was 
no  philosopher  to  enjoin  what  is  impracticable.  To  settle  the 
matter  in  a  few  words,  I  will  put  two  questions  to  my  critic:  ist. 
Can  you  treat  enemies  with  respect,  repay  their  evil  deeds  with 
kindness,  the  sentiment  of  the  first  statement  ?  You  will  say  yes. 
2d.  Could  you  love  an  enemy  while  beating  you  unmercifully  and 
smashing  your  face  into  a  jelly  out  of  sheer  spite,  or  while  abusing 
your  wife  before  your  eyes?  If  you  say  no,  then  the  question  is 
settled.     If  you  say  yes,  I  will  prove  by  Webster  that  you  are  mis- 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  71 


taken.  Webster  defines  love  as  a  verb,  to  mean  '*  to  be  pleased 
with,"  and  love  as  a  noun,  to  mean  *'an  affection  of  the  mind 
toward  an  object  which  excites  pleasure  or  pleasurable  emotions." 
Could  the  cruel  and  brutal  treatment  of  yourself  or  wife  excite 
pleasurable  emotions  in  your  mind  ?  You  are  compelled  to  say  no, 
and  that  settles  the  question  again.  Then  where  is  the  contradic- 
tion, when  you  yourself  admit  both  statements  to  be  true  ?  Let  it 
not  be  understood  that  because  we  can't  love  an  enemy,  we  should 
therefore  hate  him;  nothing  of  the  kind.  We  may,  by  treating 
them  kindly,  excite  their  love  toward  us  so  that  we  may  finally 
come  to  love  them. 

I  will  now  notice  the  case  of  the  alleged  misquotation  of 
Gibbon.  It  appears  as  my  friendly  critic  has  presented  it,  that  I 
have  made  Gibbon  say  exacdy  the  opposite  of  what  he  did  say,  or 
intended  to  say.  I  will  only  say  that  if  I  did  commit  such  an  error 
it  must  have  been  corrected,  for  I  do  not  find  it  as  he  has  quoted  it, 
in  the  last  edition  of  the  work.  And  I  will  also  say  that  I  shall  feel 
profoundly  thankful  to  my  critic  for  any  errors  he  can  find  and 
report  in  either  of  the  books.  And  I  will  never  let  another  book 
be  bound  up  till  the  error  is  corrected.  While  the  book  referred  to 
was  going  through  the  press,  I  was  traveling  in  Minnesota,  so  that 
I  had  no  opportunity  to  correct  typographical  errors,  or  errors  made 
by  the  lady  who  copied  it  for  the  press.  And  when  it  came  out,  I , 
found  a  great  many  errors  had  been  made  in  my  historical 
quotations,  by  leaving  out  or  putting  in  words  so  far  as  I  had  the 


72  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


works  from  which  I  had  quoted  in  my  possession.  But  many  of 
the  historical  works  I  used  had  been  hired  or  borrowed  and 
returned  to  the  owners,  so  that  I  could  not  examine  the  correctness 
of  the  quotations  made  from  them  till  I  could  obtain  them,  which, 
in  some  cases  was  very  difficult,  and  in  other  cases  impracticable. 

Higgins'  large  work,  from  which  I  have  quoted  very  largely, 
and  which  I  hired  from  a  gentleman  in  New  York,  at  an  expense 
of  five  dollars,  I  have  not  been  able  to  get  hold  of  since  I  returned 
it.  Nor  have  I  seen  Gibbon's  work  since  my  book  was  first  pub- 
lished, and  from  which  I  made  several  quotations.  But  I  will 
obtain  it  and  see  if  any  errors  have  been  made  by  the  copyist  or 
type-setter.  I  have  corrected  more  or  less  errors  in  every  edition  of 
the  work  that  has  been  issued,  as  fast  as  I  have  succeeded  in  getting 
hold  of  the  numerous  works  from  which  I  have  quoted  that  are  not 
in  my  library.  And  if  I  have  overlooked  an  error  made  in  quoting 
Gibbon  relative  to  the  Essenes,  it  was  because  on  reading  it  I  sup- 
posed it  to  be  his  real  sentiments,  and  I  suppose  and  believe  so  yet, 
notwithstanding  he  appears  to  deny  it  in  this  case.  But  other  quo- 
tations made  from  him  show  very  plainly  that  he  did  believe  the 
Essenes  were  the  original  Christians,  notwithstanding  he  appears 
sometimes  to  deny  it.  So  that  if  the  copyist  or  type-setter,  by  leav- 
ing out  a  sentence  or  part  of  a  sentence,  did  misrepresent  his  lan- 
guage they  evidently  have  not  misrepresented  his  real  sentiments; 
so  that  not  much  harm  is  done  after  all. 

I  intend  to  show  hereafter  by  quotations  from  his  writings  what 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  73 

his  real  sentiments  were  in  the  case,  when  I  get  hold  of  them  again. 
I  have  made  it  a  rule,  in  both  of  my  works,  to  shorten  quotations 
from  history  when  I  could  do  so  without  perverting  the  meaning. 
But  I  did  not,  in  any  case,  designedly  misrepresent  an  author. 
Indeed,  it  would  have  been  foolish  for  me  to  have  done  so,  know- 
ing that  I  would  soon  be  detected,  especially  if  perpetrated  on  a 
work  as  well  known  as  Gibbon's,  which  is  in  nearly  every  library, 
both  public  and  private. 

A  man  would  be  the  greatest  fool  imaginable  to  attempt  to 
perpetrate  a  fraud  on  a  work  as  common  and  as  well  known  as 
Gibbon's,  with  the  idea  that  he  would  not  be  found  out  in  less  than 
a  month,  or  at  least  a  year ;  and  then  as  there  are,  in  this  case, 
many  better  witnesses  to  prove  the  same  thing,  it  would  be  un- 
necessary to  force  him  into  a  lie  to  prove  it.  It  can  easily  be  seen 
that  there  was  less  motive  for  misrepresentation  in-  this  case  than  in 
most  of  the  other  five  thousand  historical  citations  found  in  the 
three  books.  This  explanation  must  satisfy  every  candid  and  un- 
biased reader,  that  no  misrepresentation  or  perverted  quotation  was 
intended.  And  if  any  is  found,  no  time  will  be  lost  in  correcting 
it.  No  person  could  be  more  mortified  than  I  was  to  find  more 
than  a  hundred  typographical  errors  in  the  first  work,  and  about 
thirty  in  the  last  work,  ("The  Bible  of  Bibles").  They  cannot  be 
found  in  the  last  edition  of  it,  however. 

Referring  to  a  number  of  these  typographical  errors  such  as 
Mamoides  for  Maimonides,  Colonel  for  Cardinal,  and  several  other 


74  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


cases  the  critic  says,  ' '  We  know  these  blunders  are  his  own."  Now 
this  is  rather  a  broad  and  bold  assumption  of  knowledge  on  his  part, 
and  withal  it  seems  to  me  rather  uncourteous  and  does  not  sound 
very  well  in  a  writer  who  has  committed  the  several  blunders  with 
respect  to  names  and  words  I  have  pointed  out  in  this  article,  and 
who,  after  condemning  me  for  using  the  word  "  exposition,"  uses  it 
himself  in  the  same  sense.  But  I  can  excuse  him  by  supposing  that 
the  work  of  criticising  is  something  new  to  him.  I  will  only  say 
further  on  this  point  that  I  think  I  have  committed  no  errors  in 
either  of  my  works.  The  typographical  errors  referred  to  above 
were  marked  by  me  for  correction  but  somehow  overlooked  by  the 
publishers. 

To  avoid  trespassing  upon  the  columns  of  the  Telegram,  or  the 
liberality  of  its  kind  and  indulgent  editor,  I  will  notice  the  other 
objections  with  which  my  reviewer  attempts  to  demolish  me,  in  the 
briefest  and  most  succinct  manner  possible.  In  speaking  of  my 
estimate  of  the  number  of  children  destroyed  under  Herod  (14,000) 
my  reviewer  says,  "  It  is  very  careless,  if  not  very  dishonest  in  Mr. 
Graves  to  claim  that  Herod  had  14,000  babes  slain.  There  was  not 
anything  like  14,000  men,  women  and  children  all  told  in  Bethlehem 
and  its  coasts.  A  dozen  children  under  four  years  would  be  a  fair 
estimate."  Here  is  a  wonderful  stretch  of  historical  knowledge 
which  demolishes  all  the  standard  historical  works  on  eastern  Asia, 
I  ever  read,  and  throws  all  commentators  overboard.  The  New 
American  Cyclopedia,  the  standard  authority  for  the  world,  says  that 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  75 


Herod  the  Great  was,  for  some  time  governor  of  Gallilee,  and  after- 
wards at  the  instance  of  Mark  Antony,  the  Roman  senate  made 
him  king  of  all  Judea.  His  decree  extended  to  "Bethlehem  and 
all  the  coasts  around  about."  This  is  very  indefinite,  but  it  must 
have  comprised  an  extent  of  many  miles,  and  a  population  of  many 
thousands.  At  least,  this  is  the  view  more  than  one-half  of 
Christendom  have  always  had  of  it.  And  it  is  to  their  learned  men 
I  am  indebted  for  the  esUmate  of  14,000.  So  that  the  reviewer 
must  settle  the  matter  with  them.  This  estimate  of  14,000  was 
made  by  learned  orthodox  Christians,  and  not  by  me.  The  most 
learned  men  of  the  most  orthodox  church  in  the  world  (the  Greek 
church)  made  this  estimate  only  a  few  hundred  years  after  the 
massacre  is  said  to  have  taken  place.  (See  Haywood.)  And  I 
guess  more  than  one-half  of  Christendom  have  believed  it  ever 
since.  Hence  it  will  be  seen  that  there  have  been -many  millions  of 
"very  careless  and  very  dishonest"  men  and  Christians  besides  Mr. 
Graves,  and  sound,  orthodox  Christians  at  that.  I  have  never 
known  any  Christian  writer  to  put  the  number  less  than  8,000. 
Now  I  will  not  retort  upon  my  reviewer,  and  say  he  is  either  "very 
careless,  or  very  dishonest"  to  put  the  number  at  a  dozen,  but  will 
use  the  softer  word  ignorant.  1  have  noUced  this  objection  at 
greater  length  than  I  should  have  done,  because  I  am  accused  of 
being  dishonest  in  putUng  the  number  at  14,000  instead  of  the 
glaring  and  self-evidently  absurd  number  of  twelve.  The  idea  is 
laughable. 


76  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


2.  The  reviewer  tries  to  make  sport  of  my  assigning  Salava- 
hana  to  Bermuda.  He  seems  to  suppose  that  I  have  reference  to 
a  cluster  of  West  India  Islands,  called  the  "Bermudas"  when  I  don't 
even  use  the  name.  It  is  Bermuda,  not  the  "Bermudas."  I  speak 
of  a  small  province  as  appears  in  ancient  Burmah. 

3.  He  asks,  when  I  quoted  Paul  about  lying  for  the  glory  of 
God,  why  I  did  not  quote  the  next  verse  about  not  doing  evil  that 
good  may  come  of  it.  I  answer  because  it  is  on  a  different  subject 
and  has  no  direct  connection  with  the  first  verse.  It  commences: 
"And  not  rather,"  etc.,  which  shows  it  is  not  the  same  thing,  and 
not  intended  to  teach  the  same  doctrine. 

4.  He  says  my  boastings  about  the  new  discoveries  in  theol- 
ogy are  like  the  whistlings  of  the  superstitious  man  while  passing 
through  a  grave  yard.  Here  he  is  mistaken.  My  whistling  was 
done  while  a  good  orthodox  church  member,  when  I  read  Horace 
Greeley's  statement  that  all  the  doctrines  of  Christianity  can  be 
found  in  the  old  heathen  Hindoo  bible  (the  Vedas).  It  alarmed 
and  shook  my  orthodoxy  so  badly,  that  I  had  to  whistle  to  keep  up 
courage ;  and  also  when  I  found  that  i:)hrenology  traces  man's  evil 
actions  to  the  brain  instead  of  the  devil. 

5.  He  says:  "  All  evidence  points  to  early  April  as  the  true 
date  of  the  Savior's  birth.  If  all  the  evidence  points  to  that  date, 
then  the  twenty-fifth  of  December  has  been  celebrated  for  hundreds 
of  years  as  the  real  time,  without  any  evidence  of  its  being  such; 
and  would  not  that  prove  they  were  either  very  ignorant,  or  ' '  very 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  77 


careless,  or  very  dishonest."  This  paragon  of  wisdom  should  have 
been  born  a  few  hundred  years  sooner,  so  as  to  stop  the  vast  waste 
of  time  and  money  in  celebrating  the  twenty-fifth  of  December. 

6.  He  says,  Prometheus  is  a  mere  fabulous  character,  on 
whose  liver  vultures  are  represented  as  feeding  for  thirty  years, 
while  nailed  to  a  rock.  I  know  that  is  the  story  told  in  our  popular 
works  on  heathen  mythology,  which  I  read  when  a  boy.  But  Mr. 
Higgins  says,  ''I  have  seen  the  account  which  declares  he  was 
nailed  to  a  cross  with  hammer  and  nails."  Ana.,  Vol.  i,  page  327. 
He  pronounces  the  first  story  a  dishonest  fabrication. 

7.  My  reviewer  says,  "  Mr.  Graves  charges  the  scriptures 
with  indecency,  yet  constantly  indulges  in  profane  and  indecent 
jests."  Here  is  another  egregious  mistake.  I  never  indulged  in 
profane  language  in  my  life ;  never  uttered  a  profane  oath,  or  used 
a  profane  word.  Nor  did  I  ever  indulge  in  indecent  or  vulgar 
language.  It  is  so  repulsive  to  my  nature  that  I  studiously 
avoided,  when  writing  my  books,  quoting  the  vulgar  language  of 
the  Bible,  even  when  referring  to  the  many  texts  which  contain 
such  language.  Doubtless  the  Bible  writers  meant  nothing  wrong 
in  the  case,  and  such  language  was  not  repulsive  to  them,  but  it  is 
to  me. 

8.  He  admits  there  are  discordant  and  contradictory  passages 
in  the  Bible,  but  says  they  were  not  important.  Dear  me,  what  a 
stretch  of  credulity.  I  have  cited  277  contradictions,  and  have 
shown  that  there  is  scarcely  one  doctrine,  principle,  or  precept  in 


78  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

the  Bible,  or  an  important  event  that  is  not  referred  to  by  contra- 
dictory statements,  thus  rendering  it  absolutely  impossible  to  learn 
anything  with  certainty  about  them.  And  yet  I  will  not  say  these 
contradictions  were  always  in  the  Bible.  I  am  objecting  to  the 
Bible  as  it  is  and  not  as  it  may  have  been.  It  was  under  the  con- 
trol of  the  Roman  Catholics  for  nearly  a  thousand  years.  And  I 
have  cited  more  than  a  dozen  Christian  writers  in  "  The  Sixteen 
Saviors,"  who  declare  the  Bible  has  been  thoroughly  changed  since 
it  was  first  written.  So  that  even  if  it  were  right  once,  it  can't  be 
right  now. 

9.  He  tells  us  that  Robert  Taylor  repented  of  his  infidelity 
l^efore  he  died.  Well,  that  is  news.  But  it  can't  be  true,  whoever 
may  have  started  the  report.  He  died  in  an  apoplectic  fit,  so  that 
he  had  no  time  to  repent.  And,  besides,  he  was  about  the  last  man 
in  the  world  to  repent  of  anything.  With  firmness  and  self-esteem 
almost  unbounded,  he  feared  nothing,  and  was  as  stubborn  as  a 
mule.  It  would  take  something  more  than  thunder  and  lightning 
to  change  such  a  man's  views. 

10.  Criticising  my  language  when  I  speak  of  religious  nations, 
he  asks,  ''  Were  there  ever  any  irreligious  nations  ?  "  Such  a 
question  discloses  a  greater  ignorance  of  history  than  a  man  who 
assumes  the  high  prerogative  of  a  critic  should  possess.  There 
have  been  many  irreligious  nations.  Livingstone,  in  his  African  ex- 
plorations, names  several  nations  or  tribes  who  manifested  no 
knowledge  or  belief  in  religion  of  any  kind ;  such  as  the  natives 
of  the  Arru  Island. 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  79 


11.  He  speaks  of  the  ascension  of  Christ  being  witnessed  by 
5,000  disciples.  I  would  ask  how  that  could  be,  when,  according 
to  the  Acts,  1,  15,  written  after  that  time,  the  number  of  disciples 
was  only  120.  What  had  become  of  them?  Had  they  relapsed 
back  into  heathenism  ? 

12.  He  faults  me  for  considering  the  few  lines  referring  to 
Christ  in  Josephus  an  interpolation  and  a  forgery.  But  this  is  not 
an  infidel  assumption.  The  most  eminent  modern  Christian  writers 
are  with  me  in  this  position.  That  able  Christian  author,  Dr. 
Lardner,  who  has  written  ten  volumes  in  defense  of  the  Christian 
faith,  and  which  may  be  found  in  nearly  all  Christian  libraries,  as- 
signs nine  reasons  for  rejecting  it  as  a  fraud.  But  his  last  reason 
would  have  been  sufficient,  that  it  is  not  found  in  the  early  editions 
of  Josephus.  He  also  shows  that  the  leader  of  the  Jews  (Josephus) 
could  not  call  Jesus  "the  Christ,"  for  that  was  the  very  thing  the 
Jews  denied.  I  have  not  room  for  all  his  reasons.  He  concludes 
by  saying  that  "  for  these  nine  reasons  it  ought  forever  to  be  re- 
jected as  a  forgery." 

13.  The  reviewer  calls  "  the  code  of  Menu,  of  the  Hindoos,' 
(he  says  Manu)  '  a  modern  compilation.'  "  But  the  fourteen  Chris- 
tian authors  which  I  have  read  on  the  subject  consider  it  one  of  the 
oldest  sacred  books  in  the  world.  The  Hindoo  missionary,  Allen, 
5ays  it  is  900  or  1,000  years  old.  He  must  settle  the  matter  with 
his  own  witnesses. 

14.  He  says,  "  Mr.  Graves  cannot  affirm  that  the  Jews  bor- 


8o  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


rowed  of  the  Persians."  Yes,  but  I  can  affirm  that  a  number  of 
Christian  writers  say  that  they  did  not  only  borrow  from  the  Per- 
sians, but  of  the  Egyptians,  and  other  nations.  Mr.  Enfield,  Mr. 
Beers,  Mr.  Gibbon,  Mr.  Campbell,  Mr.  Cunningham,  etc.,  etc.  ^ 
all  make  this  affirmation.  Here  he  has  his  own  witnesses  to  over- 
throw again. 

15.  He  says  the  legend  appertaining  to  the  Hindoo  Buddha 
originated  several  centuries  after  Christianity  was  established.  Here 
is  another  case  of  rebellion  against  all  the  historical  authors  and 
authorities  I  have  ever  read  (not  less  than  27  in  number),  including 
the  world-renowned  Mr.  Goodrich,  the  no  less  famous  and  pious 
Sir  Wm.  Jones,  and  that  standard  authority  for  the  world,  the  Nev/ 
American  Cyclopedia,  and  all  the  Christian  missionary  writers  I 
have  ever  seen.  They  all  place  him  from  300  to  1,000  years  before 
Christ.  I  v/ill  give  him  into  the  hands  of  his  own  witnesses  again, 
and  he  and  they  must  fight  it  out. 

16.  He  says  the  features  of  resemblance  between  Christianity 
and  heathenism,  0:1  which  I  lay  most  stress,  Vv^ere  stealings  from  the 
Apocryphal  gospels.  Well,  I  confess  that  is  rich.  The  early  Chris- 
tians attributed  the  Apocryphal  gospels  to  the  devil.  It  seems, 
then,  that  the  heathen  obtained  the  doctrine  of  Christianity  from 
the  devil.  And  how  did  the  devil  come  into  possession  of  them  ? 
And  when  did  he  become  a  missionary  for  propagating  the  gospel, 
and  what  will  be  his  reward  for  it  ? 

17.  The  most  important  consideration   in   this  discussion  is 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic. 


involved  in  the  question,  How  did  heathen  nations  come  into  pos- 
session of  the  doctrines  of  Christianity,  as  I  have  shown  in  my 
works  that  they  teach  and  preach  nearly  them  all  ?  My  learned  and 
friendly  reviewer  attempts  to  account  for  it  by  assuming  that  soon 
after  the  establishment  of  Christianity,  all  the  principal  heathen 
nations  underwent  an  entire  change  and  revolution  by  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  doctrines  and  precepts  of  the  gospel  into  their  old, 
time-worn  and  musty  systems.  In  noticing  this  position  I  will  ex- 
amine a  little  further  the  evidence  he  attempts  to  adduce  to  show 
that  the  Hindoos  stole  the  whole  history  of  Christ,  and  nearly  all 
his  religion  in  the  sixth  century.  The  assumption  is  based,  as  I 
have  stated,  upon  the  astrological  calculations  Mr.  Bently,  a  man 
of  some  learning  in  some  respects,  but  not  much  of  an  astronomer, 
though  he  wrote  a  work  on  the  Hindoo  astronomy.  There  is  a 
long  string  of  facts  tending  to  show  not  only  the  absurdity  but  the 
impossibility  of  being  any  truth  in  this  calculation^  more  of  which 
I  will  cite.  And  to  avoid  extending  my  article,  already  longer  than 
I  intended,  I  will  state  them  in  the  briefest  manner  possible,  and 
leave  the  readers  to  their  own  conclusions.. 

I.  The  disciples  of  the  Hindoo  religions,  including  both 
Buddhism  and  Brahmanism,  comprise  about  one-third  of  the  in- 
habitants of  the  globe,  and  have  been  for  nearly  2,000  years  scat- 
tered all  over  the  Eastern  world,  embracing  India,  China,  Egypt, 
the  Birman  Empire,  Tartary,  Japan,  Thibet,  Ceylon,  Siam,  etc., 
etc.  And  it  would  appear,  according  to  our  reviewer  and  Mr. 
II 


82  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

Bently,  that  these  400  milHons  of  heathens,  with  their  old  and 
musty  systems  of  reHgion  which  had  not  been  known  to  change 
essentially  in  a  thousand  years,  suddenly,  as  by  an  electric  shock, 
revolutionized  and  remodelled  these  old  iron-bound  systems  of  the- 
ology and  mythology,  one  of  them  by  stealing  the  life  of  Christ 
from  the  Aprocryphal  gospels,  and  the  other  his  doctrine  and  pre- 
cepts and  engrafting  them  into  their  antiquated  time-worn  creeds, 
though  scattered  as  they  were  over  the  world  for  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  miles  with  no  telegraphs  or  railroads,  and  many  of  them 
no  other  way  of  learning  for  hundreds  of  years  that  a  new  system 
of  religion  had  been  introduced  into  the  world.  Those  may  be- 
lieve this  who  can. 

2.  Had  there  been  any  real  science  or  sense  in  Bently's 
theory,  the  discovery  would  have  produced  a  sensation  throughout 
the  Christian  world ;  but  it  was  so  manifestly  weak  and  absurd 
that  it  attracted  but  litde  attention. 

3.  And  it  does  not  appear  that  any  eminent  astronomer, 
either  in  Europe  or  America,  indorsed  Bently's  pretended  discovery. 

4.  His  own  friends  ridiculed  his  theory. 

5.  And  finally  a  quietus  was  put  upon  the  matter  by  some 
scholars  a  little  smarter  or  sharper,  and  a  little  better  posted,  in- 
forming him  that  the  same  pointing  of  planets,  his  calculation  was 
based  on,  took  place  prior  to  the  time  of  Alexander,  330  B.  C, 
which  would  indicate  the  time  of  Chrishna's  birth  to  be  (instead 
of  600  A.  D.,)  as  long  before  Christ,   as  300  millions  of  Hindoos 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  83 


and  all  our  able  historians  and  the  historical  writers  of  other 
nations  have  always  placed  it.  And  thus  he  was  compelled  to  give 
it  up. 

6.  The  Hindoos  have  always  claimed  that  such  star  pointings 
are  periodical,  and  hence  had  occured  hefore. 

7.  The  history  of  Hadrian,  a  Roman  emperor,  (who  was 
born  76  A.  D.,)  proves  that  the  name  of  Chrishna  was  known 
more  than  500  years  before  the  time  Bently  assigns  for  the  origin 
■of  his  story.  He  is  also  spoken  of  in  the  history  of  Alexander, 
330  B.  C.  Perhaps  my  reviewer  had  better  try  to  bring  Alexan- 
•der  down  into  the  Christian  era. 

8.  None  of  the  150  Christian  missionaries  that  I  have  heard 
of,  who  have  been  long  operating  in  India,  have  indorsed  Bently's 
theory,  after  examining  their  books,  statues,  temples,  ancient  lan- 
guages, calculations  in  astronomy,  &c.,  which  furnish  such  con- 
vincing proof,  that  both  those  gods,  Chrishna  and  Buddha  Sakia, 
figured  in  their  history  more  than  2,000  years  ago. 

9.  And  besides  the  150  Christian  missionaries,  I  have  seen 
more  than  fifty  authors,  mostly  Christians,  who  place  Chrishna  and 
Sakia,  both  before  Christ.  In  fact,  I  have  seen  no  reliable  author 
who  does  not. 

10.  That  profound  Oriental  scholar.  Sir  William  Jones,  in  ad- 
dition to  the  testimony  of  his,  already,  says :  Asiat.  Res.  volume 
I.  "In  the  Sanscrit  dictionary,  compiled  ?nore  than  2,000  years  ago, 
we  have  the  whole  story  of  this  incarnate  god  (Chrishna),  reputedly 


84  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


born  of  virgin,  and  miraculously  escaping  in  infancy  from  the  ty- 
rant ruler  of  the  country,  like  Christ  from  Herod."  Asiat.  Res. 
volume  I,  page  260. 

IT.  The  first  Christian  missionaries  that  entered  India,  which 
was  long  before  Bently's  planet  pointing,  found  the  history  of  both 
these  gods  therc^  and  confessed  their  astonishment  (as  already 
stated)  to  find  their  histories  and  doctrines  so  near  like  those  of 
Christ. 

12.  That  standard  authority,  the  New  American  Cyclopedia,, 
places  Buddha's  birth  at  543  B.  C,  (see  volume  4,  page  61). 
And  Chrishna's  birth,  it  admits,  and  all  writers  admit,  was  much 
earlier. 

13.  It  says  the  history  and  doctrines  of  Buddha  were 
introduced  into  China  65  B.  C.  And  before  that  date,  more 
than  half  of  the  doctrines  of  Christianity  were  taught  in  the  old,, 
long-established  religion  of  the  country.  And  yet  Christian  mis- 
sionaries and  everybody  else  admit  that  there  has  never  been  any 
perceptible  change  in  the  religion  of  China  during  the  whole  period 
of  her  existence,  with  respect  to  its  principal  doctrines.  They  pos- 
sess not  the  slightest  tendency  to  innovation.  When,  then,  or  how 
could  she,  or  how  did  she,  borrow  the  doctrines  of  Christianity  ? 

14.  And  Egypt  presents  us  with  another  formidable  case. 
Not  only  had  she  the  name  of  the  Hindoo  gods  before  the  estab- 
lishment of  Christianity  or  the  birth  of  Christ,  but  in  her  oldest  sys- 
tem of  religion  are  found  taught  nearly  all  the  doctrines,  both  of 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  85 


Judaism  and  Christianity,  as  shown  in  my  books.  And  yet  the 
proofs  of  the  great  age  of  her  reHgion  and  its  wide  propagation 
long  before  Christ,  are  absolutely  overwhelming  and  beyond  refu- 
tation, and  amply  sufficient  to  convince  any  impartial  investigation. 
Taylor  says :  *'  Everything  of  Christianity  is  of  Egpytian  origin." 
Egypt  seems  to  have  the  most  definite  dates  of  her  history,  and  the 
strongest  proofs  of  the  great  antiquity  of  her  religion  and  her  gov- 
•ernment,  of  any  other  religion  in  the  world.  Her  pyramids,  her 
hieroglyphics  and  her  dynasties  of  kings,  are  strong  witnesses. 
Manetho  furnishes  us  with  a  definite  calculation  of  the  reign  of  300 
kings,  comprising  31  dynasties,  and  covering  a  period  of  3,555 
years  extending  down  to  351  B.  C,  which  the  New  American  Cy- 
clopedia says  "  is  fully  established  by  comparison  with  the  monu- 
ments," (volume  7,  page  36.)  And  under  the  reign  of  several  of 
these  kings,  most  of  the  doctrines  of  Christ  and  the  whole  code  of 
the  Jewish  theocracy  was  taught.  And  all  long  before  the  advent 
of  Christ,  as  shown  in  my  two  large  works. 

Why  did  not  the  reviewer  attempt  to  overthrow  my  position 
with  respect  to  the  Egyptian  Essenes,  preaching  and  practicing 
nearly  every  doctrine  of  Christianity  long  anterior  to  the  birth  of 
Christ?  "For  it  was  here,  (in  Egypt),  says  Mosheim,  the  Essenes 
■dwelt  long  before  the  coming  of  Christ,"  (vol.  i,  p.  196);  and  I 
have  given  a  long  list  of  the  most  striking  analogies  in  their  doc- 
trines and  principles  to  those  of  Christ,  to  the  formidable  number  of 
sixty,  which  embraces  nearly  all  the  doctrines  and  precepts  of  the 


86  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

gospel.  I  suppose  the  reason  he  skipped  over  this  chapter,  he 
found  it  impossible  to  bring  down  their  origin  into  the  Christian 
era.  He  has  no  Bently  theory  to  help  him  out  of  this  difficulty, 
hence,  he  barely  alludes  to  the  subject,  and  then  dismisses  it  by 
saying:  "No  modern  writer  of  eminence  has  confounded  the 
Essenes  with  the  Christians,  except  De  Quincy,  the  opium  eater." 
But  here  his  historical  knowledge  falls  short  again.  Bishop  Marsh, 
Michaelis  Weilting,  a  work  entitled,  "Christ  the  Spirit,"'  and  that 
world  renowned  Christian  historian,  Euscbius,  (and  others),  all 
admit  that  the  Essenes  preached  the  doctrine  of  Christianity  long 
before  the  coming  of  Christ.  Eusebius  makes  the  astounding  state- 
ment that  "those  ancient  Therapeuts  (Essenes)  were  Christians,  and 
their  ancient  writings  were  our  gospels,"  (Eccl.  Hist.,  p.  6;^). 
What  have  you  to  say  to  this,  brother  reviewer  ?  And  "Christ  the 
Spirit,"  (by  Hitchcock),  says:  "The  Christians  were  the  later 
Essenes — that  is,  the  Essenes  of  the  time  of  Eusebius,  under  a 
changed  name,  that  name  having  been  made  at  Antioch,  where  the 
disciples  were  first  called  Christians."  Here  is  something  definite 
and  positive  to  prove  that  Christianity  was  preached  before  Christ. 
Let  my  reviewer  then  cease  to  call  me  an  infidel,  when  I  prove 
nearly  all  my  positions  by  Christian  writers.  His  judgment  must  be 
.strongly  biased  to  denounce  or  renounce  such  writers  as  DeQuincy. 
Hear  what  the  world's  authority,  the  New  American  Cyclopedia  says 
about  him.  It  says:  "Mr.  DeQuincy  identified  the  Essenes  as 
being  the  early  Christians — that  is,  the  early  Christians  were  known 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  87 


as  Essenes.  Such  testimony  coming  from  such  a  source  is  entitled  to 
much  weighty'  (Vol.  i,  p.  157).  The  Cyclopedia  tells  us  De- 
Quincy's  testimony  is  entitled  to  much  weight.  But  the  reviewer 
tries  to  create  the  impression  that  it  is  entitled  to  no  weight  at  all. 
What  confidence  then  can  we  repose  in  his  judgment?  He  seems 
to  assume  DeQuincy  could  not  tell  the  truth  because  he  used 
opium.  And,  perhaps,  the  reviewer  uses  another  narcotic,  called 
tobacco.  If  so,  must  we  assume  he  can't  tell  the  truth?  If  either 
opium  or  tobacco  can  incapacitate  men  for  telling  the  truth,  then 
the  world  must  be  in  a  fearful  and  deplorable  condition,  indeed. 

I  will  now  assume  that  my  main  position  is  established  beyond 
refutation,  viz:  that  the  doctrines  of  Christianity  were  preached  in 
the  world  before  the  coming  of  Christ,  which  shows  it  to  be  of 
human  origin,  and  whether  taught  by  a  dozen  nations  or  only  one 
nation,  is  of  no  consequence.  One  proves  it  as  well  as  a  hundred 
could  do. 

As  my  reviewer  several  times  condemns  my  scholarship,  and 
ranks  me  amongst  the  ignorant,  because,  as  he  assumes,  I  do  not 
spell  foreign  names  correctly,  I  will  here  ''  turn  the  tables,"  and 
show  that  it  is  only  a  case  of  "  the  pot  caUing  the  kettle  black." 
There  is  scarcely  a  foreign  name  in  his  article  but  that  he  spells 
differendy  from  that  of  some  of  our  popular  writers.  I  will  cite  a 
few  cases  in  proof  and  illustration  : 

I.  The  Hindoo  god,  he  spells  Krishna;  that  profound  Hindoo 
scholar,  Sir  William  Jones,  spells  it  as  I  do,  Chrishna. — [See  Asiat. 


88  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


Res.]  Renan  spells  it  Christna ;  Dow  spells  it  Chrishnoo ;  Spillard, 
Chreshnou,  and  others,  Chreeshna,  etc.  2.  He  speaks  of  Max 
Mueller,  but  there  was  no  such  a  man,  according  to  our  standard 
cyclopaedia.  His  name  is  Max  Muller,  as  I  stated  before.  3.  His 
Manu  should  be  Menu,  according  to  the  same  authority.  4.  Saky- 
amouni  should  be  Sakyamuni,  according  to  the  same  authority, 
but  most  writers  spell  it  as  I  do,  Sakiamuni.  5.  His  Vishnu,  Dow 
spells  Vishnoo,  and  Robertson,  Vishnou.  6.  Buddha,  Dow  spells 
Boodha.  7.  His  Kali  Yuga,  Allen  spells  Kalee  Yuya,  and  Child, 
Kali-Yug.  8.  His  Siva,  Allen  spells  Scvu.  9.  His  Bahavet  Gita, 
the  Cyclopaedia  spells  Baghavat  Gita,  and  others  Baghavat  Geeta. 
10.  His  Mahabarata,  Allen  spells  Mahabarat.  11.  His  Puranas, 
the  Cyclopaedia  spells  Purans,  and  Dow,  Poorans.  12.  His  Keliga 
should  be  Kaliga,  according  to  most  writers. 

Here  are  a  dozen  cases  besides  some  previously  cited,  and  I 
could  give  other  cases  which  prove  that  he  has  "  become  wise  above 
what  is  written."  And  it  suggests  the  conclusion  that  although  he 
is  well  read  in  certain  channels,  he  has  not  been  over  the  whole 
field,  and  should  have  contented  himself  a  while  longer  in  being  an 
humble  student  before  he  assumed  the  high  position  of  a  teacher 
and  a  critic,  and  calls  others  ignorant  who  had  evidently  read  more 
than  he  has.  Such  a  poor  philologist  can  hardly  be  considered  a 
trustworthy  guide  in  matters  of  history. 

I  see  by  the  last  Telegram,  that  no  less  than  four  critics  are  now 
after  me,  which  will  perhaps  justify  me  in  extending  my  article  a 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  89 


little  longer  than  I  intended.  As  they  appear  to  be  all  friendly 
characters,  I  hope  we  can  exchange  thoughts  in  good  feeling.  As 
for  Professor  Swing,  I  have  no  criticism  to  offer  upon  his  article.* 
It  breathes  the  right  spirit,  and  portrays  quite  beautifully  the  origin 
of  the  belief  in  Saviors.  He  traces  it  to  the  same  origin  "The 
World's  Sixteen  Saviors"  does.  He  considers  it  as  that  work  does, 
an  outgrowth  of  man's  moral  and  religious  desires  and  aspirations. 
I  confess  the  thought  is  beautiful,  as  well  as  apparently  true.  And 
-a  similar  conception  is  involved  in  the  belief  of  crucified  gods.  A 
work  entitled,  "  The  Progress  of  Religious  Ideas,"  says  the  belief 
once  generally  prevailed  that  the  gods  would  sometimes  leave  Par- 
adise and  descend  to  the  earth  on  purpose  to  work,  to  suffer  and  to 
die  for  mankind.  And  thus  becoming  practically  acquainted  with 
the  sorrows  and  temptations  of  humanity,  they  could  jusdy  judge  its 
sins  while  they  sympathized  with  its  weakness  and  its  suffering. — 
{Vol.  2,  page  163.]  And  thus  is  suggested  the  origin  of  the  belief 
in  crucified  gods.  It  seems  rather  beautiful,  and  contains  a  good 
Tnoral,  as' is  true  of  many  other  religious  ideas  and  doctrines.  And 
in  this  way  the  belief  came  to  prevail  extensively  in  the  world,  in 
■different  nations,  that  gods  had  suffered  and  died  for  mankind  upon 
the  cross.  There  appears  to  be  but  two  well  authenticated  cases  of 
actual  crucifixion.  Those  two  cases  are  Christ  and  Chrishna.  The 
other  cases  are  probably,  most  or  all  of  them,  mere  figments  of  the 
imagination,  or  else  borrowed  from  real  cases.     As  to  the  belief  or 

■••'See  Appendix. 
12 


go  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

conception,  however,  there  can  be  no  question.  Suspensus  crucis 
(suspended  to  the  cross)  found  on  monuments  prove  this.  Professor 
Swing,  doubtless,  knows  something  of  these  facts  of  history. 

I  observe  that  the  attention  of  the  famous  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  has  been  turned  to  our  discussion.  He  suggests  that  the 
reviewer's  article  should  be  published  as  a  "  thin  book."'  The  word 
"thin  "  is  quite  suggestive,  and  I  propose  that  it  be  entitled,  "  The 
Thin  Book,"  as  this  title  may  indicate  the  character  of  its  contents, 
and  its  logic  and  its  conclusions,  all  of  which  are  thin  enough. 
And  if  the  publisher  will  allow  me  to  furnish  one-half  the  contents 
of  the  work,  I  will  furnish  one-half  of  the  funds  for  pubhshing  it. 

Another  writer  comes  to  the  front  with  words  of  cheer  for  the 
reviewer,  who  signs  himself  "D."  This  is  a  very  significant 
letter  when  applied  to  '' the  lower  regions."  His  words  are  amus- 
ing, if  not  instructive.  He  frankly  confesses  he  has  never  "  wasted 
his  precious  time  "  in  examining  the  books  he  condemns.  If  this 
be  true,  I  suggest  that  his  time  must  be  worse  than  wasted  now, 
when  he  writes  on  the  subject.  Such  a  man  would  not  be  allowed 
to  sit  on  any  jury,  or  testify  before  any  Court  of  Justice  in  the  civ- 
ilized world  —  a  man  who  prejudges  a  case  and  brings  in  a 
verdict  before  he  has  examined  the  evidence.  Such  a  witness  or 
juror  would  be  ruled  out  of  Court  in  three  minutes.  His  de- 
cision in  favor  of  the  reviewer  revives  in  memory  the  story  of  a 
young  lady  who  hastened  to  the  house  of  a  neighbor  at  early  dawn 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  91 


to  see  a  new-born  babe,  Rushing  to  the  cradle  before  the  dark- 
ness of  night  was  sufficiendy  dispelled  to  make  objects  clearly 
visible  and  discernible  in  the  room,  she  exclaimed,  "  Dear  me,  what 
a  beautiful  babe — it  is  the  very  picture  of  its  daddy !  "  But  when 
a  light  was  brought,  it  revealed  the  astonishing  fact  that  there  was  no 
object  in  the  cradle  but  an  ebon  cat.  Mortified  at  her  hasty  decision, 
she  confessed  her  mind  was  made  up  more  from  desire  than  from 
knowledge.  Perhaps  friend  D's  decision  was  controlled  more  by 
desire  than  knowledge.  And  when  he  comes  to  examine  the  case 
in  broad  daylight,  he  may  find  there  is  some  cat  about  it.  He  will 
of  course,  accept  this  illustration  in  good  feeling,  as  I  cherish  no 
feelings  of  unkindness  towards  him,  if  he  does  seek  to  bring  odium 
on  me  by  calling  me  an  infidel ;  at  least,  he  calls  my  books  infidel 
works.  And  yet  they  have  been  read  by  hundreds  of  Christians 
and  Christian  clergymen.  It  has  not  been  long-  since  a  popular 
Christian  clergyman,  residing  in  the  same  city  in  which  my  re- 
viewer resides,  called  to  see  me,  and  stated  he  had  purchased  and 
read  the  work,  and  that  he  had  butlitde  objecdon  to  offer  to  it  (The 
Sixteen  Saviors).  He  stated  he  might  differ  some  with  respect  to  some 
conclusions,  but  the  facts  are  undeniable,  as  they  are  mosdy  drawn 
from  Christian  authors.  Such  a  man  is  "  not  far  from  the  king- 
dom." My  friend  D.  may  call  me  an  infidel,  if  he  chooses,  upon 
the  assumption  that  I  disbelieve  the  Bible,  and  yet  I  frankly  confess 
that  it  contains  moral  lessons  which,  if  he  and  other  Christian  pro- 
fessors would  try  as  hard  to  live   up   to   as   I   do,  would   save   the 


92  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

world.  Isaiah's  beautiful  and  noble  exhortation,  "  Come,  and  let 
us  reason  together,"  has  often  thrilled  me  with  pleasure,  and  Paul's 
exhortation,  ''Try  and  prove  all  things,"  is  noble.  These  two 
moral  injunctions,  if  carried  out  in  practice  by  everybody,  would 
soon  inaugurate  that  glorious  era  when  truth,  love  and  justice,  and 
practical  righteousness  would  cover  the  earth  as  waters  cover  the 
sea.  But  none  of  the  Churches  or  Christian  professors  practice 
them,  or  else  they  would  all  meet  and  reason  together,  and  the  in- 
fidels with  them,  and  compare  their  views  and  doctrines  together  in 
a  spirit  of  friendship  and  loving  kindness,  to  see  who  is  right.  I 
should  be  in  favor  of  such  a  convocation  as  this.  It  would  soon 
revolutionize  the  world,  and  establish  universal  harmony. 

But  I  guess  my  friend  D.  has  not  faith  enough  in  his  Bible  to  try 
it.  In  this  respect,  I  am  a  better  Christian  than  he  is,  and  have 
more  faith  in  the  power  of  truth,  and  am  a  better  practical  observer 
of  the  precepts  of  the  Bible.  The  truth  is,  I  do  not  condemn  the 
Bible  for  what  it  may  once  have  been,  but  for  its  present  errors. 
That  it  contains  errors  now,  thousands  of  Christian  professors 
themselves  admit.  In  fact,  I  hold  no  opinion  or  position  but  what 
is  endorsed  by  many  Christian  professors.  Why,  then,  am  I  called 
an  infidel  ?  I  do  not  condemn  the  Bible,  as  such,  but  only  the  im- 
proper use  to  which  it  is  applied.  Nor  will  I  condemn  any  man  for 
his  belief,  as  I  have  stated,  if  he  will  keep  the  doors  and  windows 
of  his  mind  open  for  the  admission  of  light.  The  error  is  in  shut- 
ting out  the  light  by  refusing  to  investigate,  and  thus   assuming  we 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  95 


are  infallible  beings,  like  our  friend  D.  I  have  made  it  a  rule 
through  life  to  give  no  decision  on  any  controverted  question  until 
I  hear  all  the  parties,  and  thoroughly  examine  all  the  evidence.  He 
who  does  not  adopt  this  rule  will  find,  at  the  end  of  the  journey  of 
life,  that  he  has  committed  errors  and  mistakes.  Mr.  D.  congratu- 
lates the  reviewer  on  the  successful  refutation  of  the  positions  as- 
sumed in  my  books,  although  he  has  never  read  the  books,  and, 
consequently  don't  know  what  one  of  their  positions  is.  This  is 
about  as  sensible  as  the  boy  who  claimed  to  be  a  great  reader  be- 
cause his  father  was,  although  he  had  never  seen  inside  of  a  book. 
Nine  distinct  propositions  are  laid  down  in  the  first  page  of  the 
Bible  of  Bibles,  and  twenty-one  are  laid  down  in  the  Sixteen  Sa- 
viors, yet  the  reviewer  has  not  so  much  as  noticed  any  one  of  them. 
It  is  an  easy  matter  to  go  through  any  book  and  select  its  weakest 
points  for  criticism,  and  leave  its  main  positions  untouched.  State- 
ments may  be  criticised  and  even  proved  false,  and  yet  the  leading 
positions  and  propositions  of  the  book  may  remain  intact  and  un- 
disturbed. My  rule  is  in  criticising  a  book,  to  hunt  for  the  strong- 
holds and  strong  positions,  and  attack  them  first.  The  main  object 
in  all  my  writings  is  the  development  of  truth.  And  I  do  most  sol- 
emnly affirm  before  heaven  and  earth,  that  I  would  not  propagate 
a  single  error  to  the  world  if  I  knew  it.  And  I  do  solemnly  de- 
clare, also,  that  I  shall  feel  devoutly  thankful  to  any  person  to  point 
out  errors  in  any  of  my  writings"  if  he  or  she  can  find  any,  and  that 
is  possible,  as  I  do  not  claim  to  be  infallible.     I  have  no  creed  to 


94  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

support,  no  ism  to  maintain,  and  no  church  or  society  for  whose 
reputation  I  am  responsible.  It  is  unreasonable,  therefore,  to  sup- 
pose I  am  interested  in  the  propagation  of  error,  and  should  be 
denounced  as  a  wicked  or  dangerous  man.  My  way  of  meeting 
and  answering  slanderous  reports  is  so  to  live  that  nobody  who 
knows  me  will  believe  them  or  can  believe  them.  I  shall  never 
fight  nor  sue  for  my  character,  not  considering  it  worth  such  a 
sacrifice.     And  besides,  such  a  remedy  is  worse  than  the  disease. 

And  now  I  must  have  a  word  more  with  my  reviewer  as  I  see 
he  has  fired  off  another  rocket  in  the  last  Telegram,  Well,  I  like  to 
discuss  the  question  with  him  because  he  has  "  a  reason  for  the  hope 
that  is  in  him."  He  is  not  so  much  accustomed  to  dealing  in 
naked  assertions  without  a  show  of  proof,  as  most  of  those  I  have 
met  have  done.  He  seems  to  have  a  large  store  of  facts,  although 
they  don't  always  prove  what  he  assumes.  He  now  comes  forward 
with  another  witness  to  overthrow  the  assumed  antiquity  of  the  Hin- 
doos, based  on  astronomical  calculations.  His  witness  is  Mr.  H. 
Klaproth,  a  German  traveler,  who  figured  in  history  about  half  a 
century  ago.  He  studied  the  languages  and  acquired  some  knowl- 
edge of  science,  but  never  rose  very  high  in  the  scale  of  literary 
fame.  He  fills  about  as  short  a  chapter  in  history  as  the  redoubt- 
able Mr.  Bently.  The  Cyclopedia  honors  then  both  with  a  brief 
notice,  but  it  is  very  remarkable  that  it  says  not  a  word  about 
either  of  their  great  astrological  and  astronomical  discoveries  which, 
if  true,  must  have  produced  an  entire   revolution   in  the  religious 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  95 


systems,  not  only  of  India,  but  of  all  the  principal  nations  of  the 
earth,  and  must  have  overthrown  all  the  chronological  tables  and 
astronomical  calculations  for  thousands  of  years. 

The  omission  of  the  Cyclopedia  to  notice  them  is  of  itself 
entirely  sufficient  to  bring  discredit  upon  the  whole  story.  And  it 
is  a  remarkable  circumstance  that  neither  Mr.  Bently,  nor  Mr.  Kla- 
proth  furnish  any  reliable  data  or  basis  for  their  calculations.  We 
must  accept  the  little  evidence  they  furnish  and  assume  the  balance, 
or  be  denounced  as  infidels.  Mr.  Klaproth  asserts  that  the  astro- 
nomical tables  of  India,  running  back  for  several  thousand  years, 
were  constructed  in  the  seventh  century,  A.  D.  But  we  are  not 
furnished  with  the  convincing  evidence  of  this  statement,  but  must 
assume  that  it  is  so  and  that  he  is  infallible  in  his  calculations. 
But  Prof.  Playfair,  a  philosopher  of  Edinburgh,  furnishes  us  with, 
some  definite  and  positive  facts  calculated  to  overthrow  Klaproth's 
calculations,  or  rather  assumptions.  Klaproth  assumes  that  their 
astronomical  calculations  are  back-handed,  and  were  made  since 
the  events  took  place ;  but  Prof.  Playfair  points  to  the  fact  that  the 
calculations  were  made  in  a  language  so  ancient  that  the  present 
natives  do  not  understand  it,  and  with  astronomical  instruments  cut 
or  imbedded  in  solid  rock  bearing  evidence  of  being  several  thous- 
and years  old.  The  natives  know  nothing  about  either  the  lan- 
guage or  the  instruments,  while  there  is  no  important  event  in  their 
history  so  late  as  the  seventh  century  but  what  they  are  familiar 
with.    Here  is  very  strong  presumptive  evidence  against  the  assump- 


g6  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

lion  of  those  astronomical  calculations  being  of  modern  origin ;  and 
taken  in  connection  with  the  fact  that  they  have  chronological 
tables  showing  the  names  and  duration  of  time  for  the  reign  of  each 
king  for  two  thousand  years,  makes  the  case  still  stronger ;  and  then 
when  we  look  at  the  sculptures  and  inscriptions  on  their  statues  and 
temples,  constituted  of  porphyry,  the  hardest  rock  in  the  world,  we 
have  a  three-fold  cord  of  evidence  of  their  great  antiquity  that  is 
hard  to  resist  unless  we  have  a  creed  at  stake  which  is  dearer  to  us 
than  the  truth. 

I  have  now  noticed  nearly  all  the  points  and  statements  of  any 
importance  in  the  reviewer's  article.  I  find  one,  however,  near  the 
close  of  his  article  which  is  of  too  serious  a  character  to  pass  un- 
noticed as  it  seems  to  involve  an  indirect  attack  upon  character 
He  says,  "  If  the  Bible  be  indeed  such  a  nonsensical  and  immoral 
book  as  he  contends,  it  is  strange  that  none  but  men  of  loose  doc- 
trines if  not  of  loose  lives  have  discovered  the  fact''  Here  is  a 
broad  and  not  a  very  honorable  insinuation  against  the  character  of  a 
very  numerous  class  of  people  comprising  several  millions,  and,  as 
I  understand  it,  designed  for  me  in  particular.  With  respect  to  my 
own  character,  however;  I  have  already  spoken.  I  shall  therefore 
notice  its  general  application :  and  here  permit  me  to  remark,  his 
historical  knowledge  seems  to  be  sadly  d'eficient  again,  and  he  virtu- 
ally rejects  and  turns  State's  evidence  against  hk  own  witnesses. 
Some  of  the  leading  religious  journals,  and  some  of  the  foremost 
writers  in  the  ranks  of  the  Christian  church,   contradict  his  state- 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  97 

ment  in  the  most  positive  manner  that  the  men  and  women  of  loose 
Uves  and  character  constitute  the  infidel  class.  Hear  what 
that  bigoted  orthodox  journal  of  world-wide  fame,  the  New  York 
Evangelist,  says  on  this  subject : 

"To  the  shame  of  the  church  it  must  be  confessed  that  the 
foremost  men  in  all  our  philanthrophic  movements  in  the  interpre- 
tation of  the  spirit  of  the  age,  in  the  practical  application  of  genuine 
Christianity,  in  the  reformation  of  abuses  in  high  and  low  places,  in 
practically  redressing  wrongs,  and  in  the  moral  and  intellectual 
regeneration  of  the  race,  are  the  so-called  infidels  of  our  land. 
The  church  has  pusillanimously  left  not  only  the  working  oar  but 
the  very  reins  of  salutary  reform  to  those  she  denounces  as  inimical 
to  Christianity  (infidels)  and  who  are  doing  with  all  their  might  for 
humanity's  sake  what  the  church  ought  to  do  for  Christ's  sake,  and 
if  they  succeed,  as  succeed  they  will,  in  banishing  rum,  restraining 
licentiousness,  in  reforming  abuses,  (among  Christians),  and  in 
elevating  the  masses,  then  must  the  recoil  upon  Christianity  be 
disastrous  in  the  extreme.  Woe,  woe,  woe,  to  Christianity  when 
infidels  -i^  -■'  get  ahead  of  the  church  in  morals,  and  in 
the  practical  work  of  Christianity.  In  some  instances  they  are 
already  far  in  advance.  In  the  vindication  of  truth  and  righteous- 
ness they  are  pioneers,  beckoning  to  a  sluggish  church  to  follow  in 
the  rear." 

Here  you  have  the  testimony  of  one  of  your  own  witnesses  in 
direct  opposition  to  your  own  statement  with  respect  to  infidels 
13 


98  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

being  men  of  ''loose  lives  and  loose  morals."  You  say  they  are, 
while  this  church  organ  assures  us  their  morals  are  better  than  those 
of  Christians  and  church  members ;  which  must  we  believe  ?  And 
then  that  famous,  pious  and  devout  Christian  writer,  Catharine 
Beecher,  comes  forward  with  a  long  list  of  similar  testimonies 
gathered  from  leading  business  men  all  over  the  country  who  are 
Christians,  clergymen,  bishops,  etc.,  who  testify  in  the  most  posi- 
tive manner  that  infidels  and  outsiders  in  all  parts  of  the  country 
are  superior  in  the  exhibition  of  practical  morality  in  all  their 
dealings — that  they  are  more  honest,  more  reliable,  and  more  truth- 
ful than  Christian  professors  generally,  and  are  thus  practically 
superior  in  morals.  Her  statement  and  report  are  too  long  to  pre- 
sent here.  They  may  be  found  on  page  319  of  her  "Appeal  to 
the  People."  Our  reviewer  then  must  admit  he  is  mistaken  or  else 
reject  the  testimony  of  his  own  witnesses.  And  it  will  be  observed 
by  the  reader  that  in  the  more  than  fifty  points  he  has  raised  against 
the  books  he  criticises  and  their  author,  I  have  met  him  in  nearly 
every  case  with  his  own  witnesses.  Therefore  if  my  positions  are 
wrong,  and  I  am  as  bad  a  man  as  he  represents,  he  will  certainly 
admit  this  much,  to  say  the  least,  that  I  am  in  pretty  good  com- 
pany. His  indirect  charges  of  dishonesty  and  bad  morals  I  accept 
in  good  spirit,  believing  they  were  made  in  haste  and  without  due 
reflection,  and  that  upon  "sober  second  thought,"  he  will  see  and 
admit  he  is  mistaken.  As  for  our  discussion,  allow  me  to  say  I 
cherish  no  fears  but  that  the  truth  will  ultimately  prevail  wherever 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic. 


99 


it  may  be  found,  whether  upon  Christian  or  infidel  ground.  The 
^reat  amount  of  interest  which  seems  to  be  awakened  in  the  minds 
of  both  the  parties  in  this  discussion  will,  I  trust,  result  in  the  promo- 
tion of  perfect  good  feeling  in  the  minds  of  all  interested.  I  will 
state  in  conclusion  what  I  omitted  to  state  in  its  proper  place,  that 
one  of  the  oldest  men  in  this  county,  residing  near  Richmond, 
(James  Moore),  who  has  read  Gibbon,  says  he  clearly  understands 
this  author  by  some  of  the  language  he  uses,  to  imply  that  he  be- 
lieved the  Essenes  were  the  early  Christians.  If,  then.  Gibbon's 
language  has  been  misquoted,  his  real  sentiments  have  not  been 
misrepresented,  and  not  much  harm  is  done  by  it. 

Kersey  Graves. 

Note. — I  wish  to  add  (a  point  before  overlooked)  that  I  am 
prepared  to  show  that  nearly  all  the  strikingly  similar  doctrines  of 
Chrishna  and  Christ  (436  in  number),  were  a  part  of  the  Hindoo 
religion  long  before  the  birth  of  Christ  and  the  alleged  forgeries  on 
the  Hindoo  books  Muller  speaks  of,  and  Muller  himself  would  not 
deny  it  nor  would  he  contend  that  the  striking  similarity  between 
Chrishna  and  Christ,  Sir  William  Jones  points  out  in  the  Sanscrit 
Dictionary,  were  forgeries.  And  I  wish  also  to  state  that  Bently 
Tvas  a  D.  D.,  and  his  story  died  a  hundred  years  ago  and  before 
he  died,  and  has  been  seldom  mentioned  since. 

MR.   GRAVES'   ADDENDA. 

I  have  reproduced  Mr.  Graves'  answer  just  as  it  was  printed. 
In  order  that  he  may  not  be  held  responsible  for  any  slips   of  the 


loo  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


pen,  and  may  have  the  full  benefit  of  his  sober  second  thoughts,  I 
subjoin  the  following  notes  and  explanations  furnished  by  him  to 
successive  issues  of  the  Telegram  during  the  progress  of  the  con- 
troversy. 

[It  may  here  be  mentioned  that  the  extract  from  Klaproth  originally  printed  in  a  brief  note 
containing  some  typographical  corrections,  has  been  inserted  in  its  natural  place  in  the  present 
volume,  and  that  two  or  three  names  wrongly  spelled  in  the  Tclegi-avi^  have  been  corrected, 
thus  depriving  Mr.  Graves' criticisms  ofthe  force  they  may  have  had  when  written].     J.T.  P^ 

AN    ERROR    CORRECTED. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Telegi'am  : 

In  my  article  of  last  week,  in  speaking  of  the  age  of  the  code 
of  Menu  of  the  Hindoos,  I  am  made  to  say,  either  by  a  blunder 
of  my  own  (^r  an  error  in  the  type-setter,  that  "  the  missionary  Al- 
len says,  it  is  900  or  1,000  years  old."  It  should  read,  "  the  mis- 
sionary Allen  says,  it  is  900  or  1,000  years  older  than  Christianity." 

Allow  me  to  say  also,  that  I  had  intended  to  notice  every 
point  in  my  reviewer's  article.  But  owing  to  the  extreme  length  of 
my  review,  I  omitted  to  notice  a  few  points,  which  I  considered  of 
no  importance.  I  still  hold  myself  in  readiness,  however,  to  an- 
swer them,  either  in  public  or  private,  when  called  upon  to  do  so, 
and  answer  any  question  appertaining  to  the  subject  of  controversy. 

Kersey  Graves. 

It  may  perhaps  be  well  for  me  to  say  with  respect  to  the  name 
Max  ]\Iullcr,  that  neither  my  reviewer's  mode  of  spelling  it,  (Muel- 
ler,) nor  mine,  (Midler,)  gives  the  true  pronunciation  of  the  word. 
The  Germans  place  a  bar  over  the  ''  u  "  to  denote  the  true  sound. 


The  Gospels  not  J>rahmanic.  ioi 


Herod's  decree  was  to  destroy  children  under  two  years  of 
age,  instead  of  four,  as  stated  in  the  review.  Other  typographical 
errors  occur  in  the  review,  but  are  not  deemed  important. 

K.  G. 

AN    ERROR    CORREC'l'ED. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Richmond  Telegram : 

Please  he  kind  enough  to  allow  me  space  sufficient  to  correct 
•one  more  error.  I  have  been  so  unmercifully  pushed  and  over- 
tasked with  writing  of  late  that  I  have  written  with  such  haste,  in 
•some  cases,  as  to  commit  mistakes,  and  also  to  overlook  mistakes 
previously  made.  While  writing  my  first  large  work  I  marked  a 
large  number  of  passages  in  different  historical  works,  which,  to 
save  time,  I  got  two  persons  to  copy  out  for  me.  In  some  cases  I  find 
they  copied  too  much^  and  in  other  cases  not  enough.  One  of  the 
latter  errors  occurs  in  quoting  from  the  New  American  Cyclopedia 
(vol.  7,  p.  292),  or  was  made  by  the  type-setter. 

When  I  wrote  the  review  for  the  Telegram,  as  the  Cyclopedia 
was  not  at  hand,  I  copied  the  passage  from  an  early  edition  of  my 
book,  in  which  the  error  occurs,  without  observing  it  was  one  of 
those  errors  I  have  corrected  in  later  editions.  (Here  let  me 
announce  that  I  have  a  full  list  of  corrected  errors  of  both  books, 
more  than  a  hundred  in  number,  which  every  person  can  see  in 
print  who  may  desire  it).      Both  books  are  now  revised  and  correc- 


Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


ted.  I  have  had  a  portion  of  the  Cyclopedia  for  many  years,  but 
only  recently  the  whole  work  came  into  my  possession  with  the 
volume  containing  the  error  referred  to. 

The  copyist  makes  the  Cyclopedia  say  that  DeQuincy  identi- 
fied the  Essenes  with  the  early  Christians ;  and  it  appears  he  did 
according  to  the  Cyclopedia.  But  the  Cyclopedia  says  also  that 
the  Christians  only  assumed  the  name  in  disguise  to  save  them  from 
their  enemies ;  (and  some  writers  think  they  were  never  afterwards- 
separated). 

The  Cyclopedia  is  made  to  say  ''such  language  coming  from 
such  a  source  is  entitled  to  much  weight.'"'  Here  is  a  mistake. 
This  should  have  been  given  as  my  language,  instead  of  being  in- 
cluded in  the  quotation  from  the  Cyclopedia  which  I  did  not 
observe  when  I  copied  it  for  the  Telegram.  It  will  be  seen  I  copied 
it  word  for  word  from  my  book,  (page  218).  For  me  to  misquote 
the  Encyclopedia,  intentionally,  would  prove  me  to  be  the  veriest 
fool,  knowing  that  the  reviewer  has  access  to  the  work  and  would 
detect  me  in  a  moment.  With  this  explanation  the  reviewer,  if  he 
should  happen  to  find  this,  error,  is  welcome  to  all  he  can  make 
out  of  it,  and  all  the  other  errors  which  are  now  corrected.  Theo- 
dore Parker  and  Bayard  Taylor  both  stated  that  they  found  errors, 
in  their  works  after  they  had  passed  through  several  editions.  But 
these  errors  don't  affect  the  main  positions  of  the  work. 

I  would  like  to  furnish  my  reviewer  with  corrected  copies  of 
my  works,  and  all  persons  having  either  of  my  works  I  will 
exchange  with  and  furnish  them  a  copy  with  the  errors  corrected. 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  103 


Then  criticisms  will  be  in  order  and  just,  and  not  until  then,  unless 

confined  to  the  leading  positions  of  the  work,  which  I  am  prepared 

to  defend. 

Kersey  Graves. 

Postscript. — Permit  me  to  say  to  those  who  may   read  the 

reviewer's  article  this  week,  that  I  admit  there  are  many  errors  in 

both  of  my  works,  which  the  reviewer  possesses.     But  as  I  have 

explained  how  they  occurred,  and  have  stated  they  are  not  in  the 

last  editions,  they  will  please  make  due  allowance  on  this  account. 

I    desire    to  state  that  I  admit  that  Max  MuUer  speaks  of  some 

errors  of  Sir  Wm.  Jones  in  his  "  Chapter  of  accidents  in  comparative 

theology."     But  my   statements  of  MuUer's  views  of  the  Sanscrit 

dictionary   is  based  on  a  declaration  of  his,  made  since  that  time. 

And   my    statement   relative   to  '-reliable  authors"  on  the  Herod 

massacre  should  be   ''reliable  calculations."      The  Arru  islanders 

spoken  of  as  having  no  religion  is  a  typographical  error.     It  should 

be  Arruba,   as  a  portion    of  the   natives  of  the   Arru  islands  are 

Christian  professors.     Mr.  Livingstone  speaks  of  other  tribes  who 

have  no  religion. 

K.  G. 

valedictory. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Telegram : 

Now  as  the  discussion  is  closed,  allow  me  to  tender  my  thanks 
to  J.  T.  P.  for  the  able  and  gentlemanly  manner  in  which  he  has 
reviewed  my  books.     And  you  will  be  kind  enough  to  allow  me 


I04  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


space  sufficient  for  the  explanation  of  a  matter  which  I  preceive  is 
misunderstood,  and  without  which  explanation  great  injustice  must 
be  done  to  me,  as  well  as  to  many  of  your  readers.  I  have  stated 
that  more  than  a  hundred  typographical  errors  occurred  in  the  first 
edition  of  "The  World's  Sixteen  Crucified  Saviors."  But  allow 
me  to  say  they  nearly  all  consisted  in  merely  wrong  letters  or 
wrong  words,  such  errors  as  could  readily  be  detected  by  the 
reader,  and  therefore  of  no  importance  whatever.  I  believe  that 
only  two  mistakes  were  made  in  quoting  history  that  were  not  cor- 
rected d(/ore  //le^rs^  edition  7vcn^  foj^ress — one  from  Gibbon,  as  no- 
ticed by  J.  T.  P.,  and  the  other  from  the  New  American  Cyclope- 
dia, as  noticed  by  myself,  and  these  I  am  certain  are  not  essential 
in  setthng  any  point,  proposition  or  doctrine  in  the  book.  Most  of 
the  errors  were  corrected  in  the  second  edition  ;  so  that  a  recent 
examination  satisfies  me  that  not  a  dozen  errors  can  be  found  in  the 
edition  now  in  the  hands  of  my  reviewer. 

About  thirty  typograpical  errors  (as  I  have  stated)  occurred  in 
the  first  edition  of  "The  Bible  of  Bibles."  Most  of  them  consist 
in  giving  the  wrong  figures  for  verses  and  chapters  in  quotations 
from  the  Bible,  while  the  quotations  themselves  are  correct.  Such 
or  similar  errors  can  be  found  in  almost  any  book.  I  had  supposed 
no  reader  could  attach  any  importance  to  such  errors.  If  any  do, 
however,  I  will  exchange  with  him  or  her,  and  furnish  a  corrected 
copy.  As  trifling  as  these  errors  are  however,  a  criticism  might  be 
made  on  them  that  would  give  them  undue   importance.      Hence  I 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  105 

requested  the  kind  editor  to  make  no  criticism  on  the  first  and 
uncorrected  edition.  With  respect  to  the  word  Apis,  allow  me  to 
say  that  while  every  person  who  ever  saw  the  inside  of  an  almanac 
knows  that  taurus  is  the  generic  Latin  term  for  bull,  apis  is  a  Latin 
word  and  applied  also  symbolically  to  designate  the  Egyptian 
fabled  bull.  Apis  is  the  Latin  for  bee  (see  Webster.)  I  will  fur- 
nish a  fuller  explanation  privately  to  any  person  desiring  it.  My 
note  on  apis  made  while  reading  the  review  of  J.  T.  P.  reads  thus : 
'•  Apis,  the  Latin  term  for  bee,  used  also  symbolically  to  designate 
the  Egyptian  fabled  bull."     The  statement,  as  criticised,  is  not  as  I 

intended  it. 

Kersey  Graves. 


THE    REPLY   REVIEWED. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Richmond  Telegram : 

recapitulation. 

You  were  kind  enough  to  surrender  a  good  deal  of  space  to 
my  exposure  of  the  fallacies,  mistakes  and  misrepresentations  of 
Mr.  Kersey  Graves's  two  volumes,  ''The  Sixteen  Crucified  Saviors" 
and  "The  Bible  of  Bibles."  With  your  permission,  I  will  more 
briefly  examine  Mr.  Graves's  very  peculiar  reply  to  my  strictures. 
I  cannot  object  to  its  length,  for  the  author  has  been  no  more  long- 
winded  than  myself.      It  would  have  been  much  more  to  the  pur- 


io6  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

pose,  however,  had  he  concentrated  his  attention  on  the  chief 
points  at  issue,  instead  of  dilating  on  minor  features,  quibbHng  over 
orthography,  furnishing  autobiographical  details,  and  criticising  mat- 
ters not  in  controversy. 

The  real  questions  are,  whether  the  idea  of  a  virgin-born, 
miracle-working,  and  finally  crucified  Saviour  entered  into  the  con- 
ception of  many  nations  of  antiquity,  and  whether  the  one 
presenting  most  points  of  resemblance  to  Jesus  Christ,  viz:  Krishna 
of  India,  was  in  the  latest,  and  only  coincident  form  of  the  myth,, 
a  pre-  or  post-Christian  conception. 

I  showed  that  none  of  the  classical  authors,  dictionaries  of  my- 
thology and  other  authorities,  had  any  thing  to  say  of  the  cruci- 
fixion of  fifteen  of  Mr.  Graves's  ''Saviors."  As  to  the  sixteenth, 
Krishna,  I  quoted  Burgess,  Laplace,  Bentley,  and  Klaproth,  to 
prove  that  the  Hindoo  astronomy  on  which  Mr.  Higgins,  Mr. 
Graves's  chief  authority,  bases  his  claim  of  a  very  long  series  of 
cycles  and  avatars,  is  of  late  origin,  and  in  its  perfected  form,  post- 
Christian,  as  the  famous  treatise  Surya  Siddhanta  certainly  is. 
I  also  cited  Wilson,  the  historian  of  Hindoo  religion,  to  show  that 
the  Puranas  in  which  alone  is  the  story  of  Krishna  in  full  bloom — 
the  Vedas  contain  notliing  of  it  and  the  epics  only  its  germ — are- 
not  older  than  the  eighth  or  ninth  century  of  the  Christian  era, 
and  the  one  specially  devoted  to  Krishna  latest  of  all.  I  showed 
that  Mr.  Higgins's  Anacalypsis,  while  a  work  of  great  research, 
was  absurd  and  superannuated  in  theory;  and  that  M.  JacolHot,  an- 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  107 

other  author  on  whom  Mr.  Graves  placed  great  dependence,  was 
either  a  deceiver  or  deceived.  I  pointed  out  that  while  Buddha 
was  a  pre-Christian,  historical  character,  the  virgin-born  Buddha  of 
myth  was  described  only  in  works  which  are  post-Christian.  If  the 
stories  are  older,  we  can  only  suppose  the  fact.  I  adduced  high 
authority  for  believing  that  the  Zend  Avesta,  though  a  collection  of 
much  older  prayers  and  hymns,  dates  its  present  compilation  to  a 
post-Christian  period,  and  hence  cannot  have  been  the  source 
from  which  any  coincident  Old  Testament  cosmogony  was  derived. 
I  sketched  the  strong  historical  evidences  of  Christianity,  quoted 
the  assertion  of  the  philosophical  unbeliever,  John  Stuart  Mill,  that 
neither  Jew  nor  Gentile  could  have  invented  the  character  of 
Christ,  and  glanced  at  the  fact  that  men  had  always  vaguely 
yearned  for  a  deliverer,  a  point  afterward  developed  with  rare 
beauty  and  skill  by  Prof.  Swing.  I  also  exposed  some  glaring  mis- 
representations and  many  blunders. 


MR.  GRAVES  ON  MUELLER. 

How  has  Mr.  Graves  met  all  these  points  ?  He  is  silent 
regarding  Mill,  and  only  endeavors  to  weaken  Gieseler's  partial 
acceptance  of  Josephus's  testimony  to  Christ  by  saying  that  Lardner 
rejected  the  whole  passage.  The  issue  is  between  acute  modern 
German  scholarship  and  the  historical  knowledge  of  the  middle  of 
the  last  century;  but  the  result  is  not  of  first  class  importance. 


io8  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

He  says  nothing  of  the  Zend  Avesta,  and  only  mentions  Buddha 
to  convey  the  false  impression  that  I  regard  all  legend  concerning 
him  to  be  post-Christian.  What  I  did  say  has  been  virtually 
repeated  above.  Mr.  Graves  has  not  any  fault  to  find  with  the 
testimony  of  Laplace,  Burgess,  or  Wilson.  He  is  savage  against 
Max  Mueller  for  exposing  Jacolliot,  though  he  does  not  complain  of 
equally  emphatic  condemnation  by  John  Fiske.  He  goes  so  far  as 
lo  sneer  at  Mueller  as  inferior  in  authority  to  the  anonymous 
compiler  of  an  article  in  a  superseded  edition  of  a  Cyclopedia — (Mr. 
Graves  uses  the  old  American,  of  which  the  last  volume  was 
published  in  1863,  the  new  being  eleven  years  later.)  He  is  prob- 
ably not  aware  that  Mueller  was  commissioned  by  the  East  India 
Company  to  translate  the  Rig  Veda ;  that  his  notes  on  the  text  are 
regarded  as  marking  an  era  in  the  history  of  Sanscrit  literature,  and 
that  no  living  man's  dictum  on  Oriental  theology  and  philosophy 
carries  more  weight.  Mr.  Graves's  favorite  Cyclopedia  furnishes  a 
biography  of  Mueller,  but  is  silent  regarding  Mr.  Higgins. 
This  shows  the  compiler's  estimate  of  the  two  men.  In  passing  I 
must  notice  that  Mr.  Graves  affirms  that  Mueller's  name  is  Muller, 
and  so  appears  in  the  Cyclopedia.  I  must  contradict  him.  If  he  will 
look  again,  he  will  see  two  dots  over  the  u,  except  in  the  capitals  at 
the  beginning  of  the  notice.  These  dots,  which  can  be  used  over  a, 
o,  or  u,  show  that  the  letter  is  modified,  or  as  the  Germans  say, 
becomes  an  umlaut.  The  change  is  the  introduction  of  the  e  sound. 
Thus  Muller  is  pronounced  very  like  our  word  Miller,  while  Muller 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  109 

would  be  Mooler.  It  is  allowable  to  add  the  e  instead  of 
using  the  dots,  and  the  former  course  is  taken  where  the  fonts  are 
not  provided  with  the  dotted  letters.  To  close  this  discussion  of 
Prof  Mueller's  responsibility,  which  will  seem  wholly  superfluous  to 
those  acquainted  with  the  literature  of  the  day,  it  may  be  said  that 
he  could  not  misrepresent  Jacolliot  without  being  exposed  to  rival 
philologists — for  he  has  had  his  differences  with  one  eminent  man  at 
least — and  also  that  Col.  Wilford  has  told  the  story  of  the  frauds 
practiced  on  himself,  in  the  pages  of  the  Asiatic  Researches. 


THE  TWO  BENTLEYS. 

But  if  Mr.  Graves  is  angry  with  Mueller,  he  is  furious  against 
Bentley.  That  gentleman,  in  a  communication  to' the  sixth  volume 
of  the  Asiastic  Researches,  showed  by  mathematical  calculations, 
that,  granting  the  position  of  the  planets  to  have  really  been  at  the 
birth  of  Krishna  as  they  are  set  down  in  his  horoscope,  he  must 
have  been  born,  if  at  all,  A.  D.  600.  First,  Mr.  Graves  styles  Mr. 
Bentley  "  an  arrogant,  self-conceited,  pedantic  student  of  divinity, 
by  the  name  of  Richard  Bently,  (he  erroneously  omits  the  e) 
whom  my  critic  calls  an  astronomer  (God  save  the  mark.")  Next 
I  am  told  that  Mr.  Bentley  is  "a  man  of  some  learning  in  some 
respects,  but  not  much  of  an  astronomer,  though  he  wrote  a  work 
on  the  Hindoo  astronomy;"  a  quietus  having  been  finally  put   on 


Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


Kim  by  other  calculations  giving  Krishna  greater  antiquity.  "  The 
redoubtable  Mr.  Bently"  is  again  mentioned,  and  lastly  it  is  said 
that  '^  Bently  was  a  D.  D.,  and  his  story  died  a  hundred  years  ago 
and  before  he  died,  and  has  been  seldom  mentioned  since." 

Now,  respecting  these  passionate  but  hardly  reconcilable  state- 
ments, I  have  only  to  say  that  Mr.  Graves  has  mixed  up  two  very 
different  persons.  Richard  Bentley,  a  renowned  theologian  and 
Greek  scholar,  died  in  1742,  aged  eighty.  He  probably  never 
heard  of  Hindoo  astronomy.  John  Bentley,  a  fellow  of  the  Royal 
Asiadc  Society,  wrote  the  analysis  of  Krishna's  horoscope,  about 
the  year  1801.  The  Edinburgh  Review  took  up  cudgels  against 
him,  and  a  sharp  controversy  followed.  Bentley  waged  a  gallant 
fight,  and  whether  or  not  he  established  all  the  minutiae  of  his  con- 
clusions, posterity  has  declared  that  he  was  right  in  general.  In- 
deed, among  his  contemporaries,  such  men  as  the  eminent  French 
mathematician,  Delambre,  Dr.  Maskelyne,  Astronomer  Royal  of 
-Great  Britain,  Cuvier,  Heeren,  and  Klaproth,  all  sustained  him. 
It  is  from  Klaproth's  letter  to  Bendey  that  I  quoted  the  statement 
of  the  late  origin  of  Hindoo  astronomy.  Mr,  Graves  thinks  Klap- 
roth a  mere  traveler.  He  was  not  a  traveler  except  for  the  study 
of  history  and  languages,  and  the  contemptuous  criticism  is  either 
an  illustradon  of  stupidity  or  a  wretched  shift  to  get  rid  of  testi- 
mony which  is  not  agreeable.  I  must  not  forget  to  add  that  all  Mr. 
Graves's  indignation  against  Bentley,  and  his  blundering  as  well,  are 
second-hand.     The  confusion  of  the  theologian  and  the  mathema- 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  m 


tician  was    first  made  in  Taylor's   Diegesis,  and  it  is  thence  Mr 
Craves  stole  his  thunder. 


THE    FACTS   ABOUT    INDIA, 

While  in  matters  of  detail  modern  Orientalists  may  hold  di- 
verse opinions,  there  are  certain  great  facts  which  are  regarded  as 
settled.  Among  these  are  the  radical  changes  which  affected  the 
religious  faith  of  the  Hindoos  after  the  Veda  age.  The  Vedas, 
though  of  different  periods,  mainly  inculcate  nature  worship,  with 
occasional  gUmpses  of  one  supreme  being.  Their  gods  generally 
have  different  names  from  those  of  the  later  Epic  and  Puranic 
periods  and  the  trimurti  or  trinity,  much  less  the  Krishna  incarna- 
tion, are  not  found  in  them  or  in  the  laws  of  Manu,  a  later  produc- 
tion than  the  Vedas — not  a  late  one  as  was  erroneously  printed  in 
my  last.  There  is  almost  no  reliable  Indian  history.  Only  one 
date  before  Christ  has  been  actually  verified;  that  of  a  king  named 
•Chandrugupta,  who  ascended  the  throne  B.  C.  315.  The  authentic 
history  of  India  begins  with  the  twelfth  century  of  our  era.  Hence 
a  thorough  comparison  of  languages  and  dialects,  and  a  careful 
•collation  of  the  manuscripts  containing  the  sacred  writings  have 
been  required.  This  has  been  the  work  of  years,  but  largely  of 
the  last  quarter  of  a  century.  It  is  made  clear  that  the  elaborate 
Brahmanical  ceremonial  gradually  superseded  the  Vedaic  nature 
worship;    that  a  war   ensued  between   the  priestly   and   soldierly 


112  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


castes  ;  that  the  former  being  victorious  by  the  aid  of  the  common 
people,  intermingled  some  of  their  superstitions  with  their  own; 
that  the  trinity  and  incarnations  were  elaborated  by  slow  degrees, 
and  became  more  definite  when  the  rise  of  the  opposing  faith  of 
Buddhism  rendered  a  firm  stand  necessary,  reaching  their  full 
height  only  when  liuddhism  was  finally  expelled  from  the  Indian 
peninsula  twelve  or  fourteen  centuries  after  the  Christian  era.  I 
substantiated  these  general  facts  in  my  former  article,  but  I  will 
make  a  few  additional  citations  to  clinch  the  argument. 

Chambers's  Encyclopedia,  a  work  noted  for  its  impartiality 
and  its  avoidance  of  all  disputed  positions,  and  anything  which 
looks  like  partisanship,  says  of  the  great  epics  : 

"Krishna  has  in  the  Bhagavad-gita  the  rank  of  the  supreme  deity,  but 
there  are  in  other  passages,  again  in  the  Mahabharata,  in  which  the  same 
claim  of  Siva  is  admitted,  and  an  attempt  is  made  at  comparing  their  rival 
claims  by  declaring  both  deities  one  and  the  same.  Sometimes,  moreover, 
Krishna  is  in  this  epos  declared  to  represent  merely  a  very  small  portion  of 
Vishnu.  In  the  Mahabharata,  therefore,  which  is  silent  also  regarding  many 
adventures  in  Krishna's  life,  fully  detailed  in  the  Puranas,  the  worship  of 
Vishnu  in  this  incarnation  was  by  no  means  so  generally  admitted  or  settled  as 
it  is  in  many  Puranas  of  the  Vishnuit  sect,  nor  was  there  at  the  epic  period 
that  consistency  in  the  conception  of  a  Krishna  avatar,  which  is  traceable  in 
the  later  works." 

I  (juoted  the  opinion  of  Wilson,  the  learned  writer  on  the  re- 
ligion of  the  Hindoos,  that  the  Puranas  are  not  anterior  to  the 
eighth  or  ninth  centuries,   (of  the  Christian  era,)  and  the  most  re- 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  113 

.cent  not  above  three  or  four  centuries  old.  Mr.  Graves  has  nothing 
to  say  to  this,  except  to  produce  the  loosely  expressed  opinion  of  Sir 
William  Jones.  Sir  William  was  a  great  and  learned  men,  but  he 
died  in  1794.  Since  his  day  Oriental  research  has  made  prodigious 
strides.  One  might  as  well  quote  him  on  questions  of  philology  and 
ethnology  against  Mueller,  Weber,  Lassen,  Burnouf,  and  other  mod- 
ern scholars,  as  to  depend  on  Captain  Tuckey,  who  reached  the  lower 
falls  of  the  Congo,  in  1816,  and  there  died,  as  authority  regarding  the 
upper  river,  now  that  we  have  Stanley's  narrative  to  read. 

Weber  and  Lassen,  German  authorities  of  the  first-class,  and 
.not  known  as  religious  enthusiasts,  agree  on  the  interpretation  of  a 
passage  of  the  Mahabharata:  That  it  shows  that  at  an  early  period 
of  the  history  of  the  Christian  church,  three  Brahmans  visited 
some  community  of  Christians,  either  in  Alexandria,  Asia  Minor  or 
Parthia,  and  that  on  their  return  they  were  enabled  to  introduce 
important  changes  in  their  hereditary  creed,  and  more  especially  to 
make  the  worship  of  Krishna  the  most  important  feature  of  their 
system.  At  this  time,  though  India  was  pretty  well  known  to  the 
Christian  world,  there  was  no  confounding  of  Christians  with 
Brahmans.  The  famous  Tertullian  said  :  "  We  are  no  Brachmans, 
nor  Indian  gymnosophists,  dwellers  in  woods,  estranged  from  the 
affairs  of  life.  We  know  that  our  duty  is  to  give  thanks  for  every- 
thing to  God,  the  Lord  and  the  Creator."  Yet  there  was  inter- 
course between  the  East  and  West. 

Weber  has  seen  in  the  Hindoo  Kali-yuga  when  the  tenth  ava- 
15 


114  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


tar  of  Vishnu  is  to  occur,  a  borrowing  from  the  white  horse  of  Reve- 
lation. He  doubts  whether  the  incarnated  Krishna  was  identical 
with  the  Indian  Hercules  of  the  Greek  writers,  ''  who  was  no  in- 
carnation, in  the  proper  sense  of  the  language,  and  very  different 
from  the  Krishna  of  later  times."  Mr.  Pavie,  a  prominent  French 
Orientalist,  says  in  the  preface  to  a  translation  of  a  Purana,  pub- 
lished in  1852  : 

"  Krishna  worship  is  the  most  recent  of  all  the  philosophical  and  reli- 
gious systems  which  have  divided  India  into  rival  sects.  Based  on  the  theory 
of  successive  incarnations,  which  neither  the  Veda  nor  the  law-makers  of  the 
first  Brahmanic  epoch  admit,  Krishnaism  differs  in  all  points  from  the  creeds 
peculiar  to  India :  so  that  one  is  inclined  to  regard  it  as  a  borrowing,  made 
from  foreign  philosophies  and  religions." 

It  is  certain  that  the  epics  have  been  greatly  interpolated  ;  less 
than  a  quarter  of  the  Mahabharata,  for  example,  having  entered 
into  its  original  composition.  That  the  Bhagavat-gita,  the  episode 
in  which  Krishna  appears  in  divine,  but  not  in  the  later  semi- 
Christian  garb,  is  post-Christian ;  that  the  apocryphal  Gospel  of  the 
Infancy  was  circulated  at  an  early  period  on  the  Malabar  coast,  and 
was  held  in  special  honor  by  the  Manichean  heretics,  who  strove  to 
corrupt  Christianity  with  Indian  theories.  According  to  Eusebius, 
the  Christian  missionary,  Pantaenus,  went  as  far  as  India.  Flourish- 
ing Christian  churches  were  established  in  the  Hindostan  as  early  as 
the  latter  part  of  the  second  century.  These  are  well  established 
facts,  and  show  that  the  Hindoos  had  abundant  opportunity  for 
investing  one  of  their  favorite  deities  with  new  attributes.     Yet, 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  115 

Tiow  different  is  Christianity  from  Krishnaism.  The  one  protects 
purity  and  proclaims  the  sacredness  of  human  Hfe ;  the  other  abounds 
in  licentious  rites,  and  in  the  month  of  July  celebrates  the  departure 
•of  Krishna  from  his  native  land  in  the  horrible  festival  of  Juggernaut ! 
Yet,  the  faiths  are  essentially  the  same,  according  to  Mr.  Graves.    • 

MR.    graves' S    REMARKABLE    AUTHORITIES. 

But  he  has  authorities  who  bear  testimony  to  facts  otherwise 
unattainable.  I  shall  not  trouble  myself  about  his  eminent  Mr. 
'Goodrich,  whom  I  guess  to  be  no  other  than  the  well  known  com- 
piler, "  Peter  Parley,"  and  Horace  Greeley,  who  knew  as  much 
about  Sanscrit  as  he  did  about  Greek,  but  quote  the  following 
paragraph  from  his  reply  : 

"  The  secret  of  the  whole  matter  is :  two  very  popular  and  learned  au- 
thors, who  have  investigated  and  studied  the  subject  more  critically  than  any 
•other  writers  who  ever  wrote  on  the  subject,  claim  to  be  able  to  throw  new 
light  on  the  subject.  They  claim,  just  as  Max  Muller  does,  with  respect  to 
the  Hindoo  Vedas,  to  have  discovered  that  changes  and  alterations  or  omis- 
sions were  made  many  years  ago  in  the  histories  of  the  oriental  gods,  by  which 
some  of  the  most  important  events  of  their  lives  were  either  left  out  or  mate- 
rially altered.  Those  two  authors  are  Alexander  Dow  and  Sir  Godfrey  Hig- 
gins.  {All  the  English  writers  I  have  seen,  prefix  Sir  to  his  name,  my  critic 
to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.)" 

To  begin  with  a  point  of  little  importance,  I  must  repeat  that 
Mr.  Higgins  is  not  called  "  Sir."  If  Mr.  Graves  will  look  into  his 
favorite  Diegesis  he  will  see  him  mentioned  as  ' '  Godfrey  Higgins, 
Esq.,  of  Skellow  Grange."     Next  he  evidently  quotes  Dow  at  sec- 


ii6  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

end  hand.  Alexander  Dow,  who  died  in  1779,  translated  from  the 
Persian  of  Ferishta,  a  History  of  India,  which  has  no  bearing  on 
religious  traditions.  This  was  published  between  1768  and  1772,. 
when  very  little  was  known  respecting  the  Oriental  religions.  In 
an  introduction  of  seventy-six  pages,  Col.  Dow  gives  a  very  superfi- 
cial sketch  of  Brahmanism,  much  inferior  in  every  way  to  a  modern 
Encyclopaedia  article.  He  mentions,  I  believe,  that  the  Brahmans 
accused  the  Jews  and  Mohammedans  of  having  borrowed  some  re- 
ligious rites,  and  that  is  about  all. 

MR.    HIGGINS    AND    HIS   WEAKNESSES. 

As  for  Mr.  Higgins,  I  find  quoted  in  Allibone's  Dictionary  of 
Authors,  a  work  of  standard  authority,  the  following  comment  on 
the  Anacalypsis,  from  the  London  Athenaeum,  a  leading  literary 
weekly  of  that  metropolis,  which  fully  confirms  my  estimate  of  the 
book  in  my  former  communication  : 

*' It  occasionally  happens  that  books  written  to  display  some  peculiarity 
of  system,  or, — as  the  wicked  say, — crotchet  of  the  author,  turn  out  to  have 
a  value  of  their  own,  from  the  very  great  number  of  well  indexed  and  well 
referenced  facts  which  they  contain.  We  remember  being  much  struck  by 
seeing  among  the  books  of  reference  in  the  Museum  Reading  Room,  the  Ana- 
calypsis of  Godfrey  Higgins.  Never  was  there  more  wildness  of  speculation 
than  in  the  attempt  to  lift  the  veil  of  Isis.  But  thousands  of  statements  cited 
from  all  quarters,  and  very  well  indexed,  apparently  brought  the  book  into 
such  demand  as  made  it  convenient  that  it  should  be  in  the  reading  room 
itself." 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  117 

This  was  published  in  August,  1856,  more  than  twenty  years 
ago.  The  book  is  to  be  found  in  many  of  the  large  libraries  of 
Europe  and  this  country,  yet  we  see  no  really  learned  skeptics  on 
either  side  of  the  water  urging  its  theories  against  Christianity. 
Mr.  Higgins  was  about  the  last  of  the  host  which  fought  the  faith 
under  the  banners  of  Orientalism. 

Mr,  Graves  quotes  a  silly  story  from  Higgins,  relative  to  the 
concealment  of  some  Hindoo  manuscripts,  which  told  against  Chris- 
tianity, by  a  bishop.  It  is  impossible  that  any  prelate  could  sup- 
press all  of  the  many  manuscripts  kept  with  such  religious  care  by 
the  natives ;  or  secure  the  co-operation  of  the  Brahmanical  oppo- 
nents of  the  Bible  in  keeping  such  statements  quiet.  Moreover, 
from  the  first  entrance  of  the  English  into  India,  unbelievers  were 
proclaiming  the  evidences  which  its  religion  afforded  against  the 
Cliristian  faith.  They  failed  to  produce  many,  and  have  been 
beaten  out  of  these.  As  we  have  said,  Mr.  Higgins  was  one  of  the 
last  of  his  class,  and  Mr.  Graves  has  attempted  to  reanimate  a 
corpse. 

He  also  quotes  Moor's  Pantheon,  an  interesting  but  antiquated 
work,  published  in  18 10,  which  he  says  contains  the  portrait  of 
"The  Crucified  Chrishna."  Mr.  Moor  is  of  a  different  opinion. 
He  says: 

•*The  subject  is  evidently  the  crucifixion;  and  by  the  style  of  workman- 
■sliip,  is  clearly  of  European  origin,  as  is  found  also  by  its  being  in  duplicate. 
These  crucifixes  have  been  introduced  into  India,  I  suppose,  by  Christian  mis- 


ii8  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


sionaries.     *     *     They  are  well  executed,  and  in  respect  to  anatomical  ac- 
curacy and  expression,  superior  to  any  I  have  seen  of  Hindoo  workmanship." 

I  have  the  picture  before  me  as  I  write,  and  in  spite  of  Mr, 
Higgins's  attempt  to  prove  that  Moor  was  wrong,  and  Mr.  Graves's 
exaggerated  endorsement  of  Mr.  Higgins,  must  agree  with  the 
author.  This  picture  was  one  of  two  brought  to  Mr.  Moor  by  a 
native,  but  Mr.  Higgins  says  that  the  book  contains  others,  copied 
from  the  rock  temples,  that  abound  in  India.  These  he  holds  to 
be  of  great  antiquity.  On  the  contrary,  these  temples  are  of  Budd- 
hist construction,  and  therefore  comparatively  late ;  that  at  Ele- 
phanta,  near  Bombay,  being  ascribed  to  the  fifth  century  after 
Christ.  They  afford  no  support  to  the  pre-Christian  Krishna 
theory. 

In  this  connection,  and  before  dismissing  Mr.  Higgins,  I  may 
remark  that  Mr.  Graves  quotes  him  as  alleging  that  the  current 
versions  of  the  sufferings  of  Prometheus  are  garbled,  and  that  he 
was  crucified.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  the  ancient  Greek  poet,. 
Hesiod,  says  that  Prometheus  was  liberated  by  Hercules ;  and  that 
wfEschylus  represents  that  the  Centaur  Cheiron,  was  mortally  wounded 
by  Hercules,  and  sent  to  Prometheus's  place  in  Tartarus.  There 
are  other  variations  in  these  two  narratives,  and  there  are  still 
other  versions,  but  in  none  of  them  does  the  crucifixion  come  in. 
Mr.  Higgins's  word  is  of  no  weight  against  the  classical  writers, 
who,  of  course,  had  no  Christian  prejudices  to  gratify. 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  119 


THE    ESSENES. 

Having  disposed  of  the  general  issue,  and  shown  that  Mr. 
Graves  has  not  shaken  a  single  vital  position,  but  has  only  proved 
himself  more  ignorant  than  I  thought  him,  I  pass  to  the  Essenes. 
He  is  evidently  much  fluttered  about  the  misquotation  of  Gibbon's 
note,  and  promises  a  correction.  A  Httle  later  he  takes  courage 
from  the  assurance  of  a  certain  citizen  of  Richmond  that  he  is 
correct  in  his  belief  that  Gibbon  agrees  with  him.  Were  this 
true  it  would  not  justify  the  garbUng  of  a  passage,  and  he  will  de- 
rive no  comfort  from  the  text  to  which  the  note  refers.  That  text 
says  of  the  reception  of  Christianity  at  Alexandria,  "  It  was  at  first 
embraced  by  great  numbers  of  the  Therapeutae  or  Essenians  of 
the  Lake  Mareotis,  a  Jewish  sect  which  had  abated  much  of  its 
reverence  for  the  Mosaic  ceremonies.  The  austere  life  of  the 
Essenians,  their  fasts  and  excommunications,  the  community  of 
goods,  the  law  of  celibacy,  their  zeal  for  martyrdom,  and  the 
warmth — though  not  purity— of  their  faith,  already  offered  a  very 
lively  image  of  the  primitive  discipline." 

This,  coupled  with  the  declaration  of  the  note  that  Basnage 
has  *'  demonstrated  in  spite  of  Eusebius  and  a  crowd  of  modern 
Catholics  that  the  Therapeutae  were  neither  Christians  nor  monks," 
is  in  accordance  with  the  latest  views,  drawn  from  the  Talmuds  and 
other  ancient  Jewish  writings,  which  correct  the  impressions  based 
on  Philo  and  Josephus — Eusebius  being  a  mere  copyist  of  the 
former,  who  lived  two  hundred  years  before  him. 


:i2o  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

The  Essenes  were  Pharisees  of  the  Pharisees;  men  who  held 
most  exaggerated  notions  of  the  Mosaic  ritual,  and  were  divided 
into  degrees  or  castes. 

The  Therapeutae  were  of  the  same  stock  as  the  Essenes  of 
Judea,  but  clung  more  lightly  to  the  law,  and  were  affected  by  the 
Greek  philosophy,  especially  the  Pythagorean,  so  widely  diffused  in 
Egypt.  Both  practiced,  however,  elaborate  washings,  and  other 
rites. 

They  mainly  resembled  the  Christians  in  the  points  in  which 
the  latter  resembled  their  Jewish  brethren,  and  Mr.  Graves's  sixty 
points  of  coincidence  cannot  stand  against  the  testimony  of  history, 
and  the  reproofs  by  the  Apostle  Paul  of  the  Galatians  for  keeping 
days,  etc.,  the  censure  of  those  who  forbade  marriage,  and  the 
general  spirit  of  the  New  Testament.  Undoubtedly  Essenism, 
like  other  Jewish  theories,  influenced  the  early  church,  but  it  was 
not  identical  with  it. 

MR.  Graves's  original  quotation. 

I  said  that  no  modern  writer  of  eminence  except   Thomas  De 

Quincey  identifies  the  Essenes   and  the  Christians,  but  Mr.  Graves 

is  determined  to  make  the  most  of  him.     We  quote  : 

"  Heai- what  the  world's  authority,  the  New  American  Cyclopedia,  says 
about  him  (DcQuincey).  It  says,  'Mr.  DeQuincey  (Mr.  Graves  spells  the 
word  De  Quincy)  identified  the  Essenes  as  being  the  early  Christians.  That 
is  the  early  Christians  were  known  as  Essenes.  Such  iestimo7iy  comi77g  from 
such  a  soiure  is  entitled  to  much  Tueight^ 


The  Gospels  not  Brahman ic.  121 


The  words  which  I  have  put  in  these  single  quotation  marks, 

since  they  are  inchided  in  a  citation  from  Mr.  Graves,  are  credited 

by  him  to  volume  i,  of  the  Cyclopedia.     This  is  a  mistake,  but  it 

is  of  little  consequence,  since  the   work  is  ranged  alphabetically. 

But  the  Cyclopedia  says  something  quite  different — here  it  is : 

•'  De  Quincey  has  sought  to  identify  them  (the  Essenes)  with  the  early 
Christians,  who,  surrounded  by  dangers,  assumed  the  name  and  mode  of  life 
■of  the  Essenes  as  a  disguise.'' 

There  is  not  a  word  about  the  testimony  being  of  much  weight, 
and  I  supposed  your  compositor  might  have  included  in  quotation 
marks  what  was  only  added  by  Mr.  Graves,  but  further  reading  does 
not  allow  this  explanation.  Either  Mr.  Graves  has  been  deceived 
by  some  unscrupulous  writer  from  whom  he  took  these  quotations 
-at  second-hand,  or  he  has  been  guilty  of  a  contemptible  forgery. 
He  adds  :  ' '  The  Cyclopedia  tells  us  Dc  Quincy's  testimony  is  en- 
titled to  much  credit."  Abstinence  from  tobacco  and  stimulants 
■does  not  always  insure  truthfulness.  I  begin  to  think  that  his 
misrepresentation  of  Gibbon  was  not  so  purely  accidental.  Even 
if  it  were,  there  is  not  the  same  palliation,  for  Mr.  Graves  expressly 
-says  he  owns  the  Cyclopedia,  and,  if  so,  he  certainly  ought  to  have 
looked  for  himself. 

Then  we  are  not  satisfied  with  his  explanation  of  his  slander 

.against  the  Apostle  Paul.     The  verse  he  did  not  quote  is  a  part  of 

the  statement.     In  the  Greek  original,    which  is  not  divided  into 

verses,  the  connective  kai  (and)  has  a  small  letter  at  the  beginning. 

16 


Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


Besides  in  the  verse  he  did  not  cite,  the  apostle  indignantly  repudia- 
tes the  doing  evil  that  good  may  come.  Does  this  not  include  lying 
for  the  alleged  glory  of  God  ?  If  Mr.  Graves  has  the  least  particle 
of  honesty  he  will  expunge  from  his  volumes  this  several  times 
reiterated  falsehood. 

IRENAEUS    DISAPPOINTS    MR.     GRAVES. 

Having  grossly  libeled  an  apostle,  we  cannot  expect  that  Mr. 
Graves  should  be  very  careful  to  avoid  misrepresenting  a  father  of 
the  church.  He  says  that  Irenaeus,  whose  name  he  spells  Ireneus, 
denies  that  Christ  was  crucified.  "This  learned  and  pious 
bishop,"  he  says,  ''declared  upon  the  authority  of  the  martyr  Poly- 
carp,  who  claimed  to  have  got  it  from  St.  John  and  the  elders  of 
Asia,  that  Christ  was  not  crucified,  but  lived  to  the  age  of  fifty." 
This  is  "  important  if  true^"'  for  Irenaeus  was  the  great  opponent  of 
the  heresies  of  the  day.  But  it  is,  at  least,  one-half  false.  He  be- 
lieved that  Christ  lived  until  fifty,  from  an  erroneous  interpretation 
of  the  words  of  the  Jews  (John  viii.  57),  ''Thou  art  not  yet  fifty 
years  old,  and  hast  thou  seen  Abraham?"  He  argued  that  as  Christ 
bore  the  sins  of  all  men.  He  must  have  had  a  personal  experience  of 
all  the  ages  of  human  life.  Yet  no  one  held  more  fully  than  he  to 
the  reality  of  his  Master's  death,  and  that  on  the  cross.  I  quote 
from  his  treatise  against  the  Heretics  : 

"They  [the  heretics]  maintain  that  the  Lord,  too,  performed  such  works- 
simply  in  appearance.  We  shall  refer  them  to  the  prophetical  writings  and 
prove  from  them  both   that  all  things  were  thus  predicted  regarding  Him^ 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  123 


and  did  take  place  undoubtedly,  and  that  he  is  the  only  son  of  God.  And 
what  shall  I  more  say?  It  is  not  possibl-e  to  name  the  number  of  the  gifts 
which  the  church  [scattered]  throughout  the  whole  world  has  received  from 
God  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ,  who  was  crucified  under  Pontius  Pilate,  and 
which  she  exerts  day  by  day  for  the  benefit  of  the  Gentiles." 

I   think   Mr.    Graves   has   had   enough   of  the   testimony  of 
Irenaeus. 

HOW    MR.    GRAVES   TREATS    THE    BIBLE. 

As  a  critic  of  the  Bible  Mr.  Graves  is  decidedly  and  disreputably 
original.  He  is  so  bitter  against  it,  that  he  accepts  every  wild 
story  that  may  serve  his  purpose ;  finds  difficulties  and  contradic- 
tions where  no  one  else  has  espied  them,  and  hence  obscures  the 
real  points  of  which  shrewd  unbelievers  have  availed  themselves. 
There  are  questions  of  interpretation  yet  to  be  settled ;  passages  the 
harmonizing  of  which  is  not  easy,  if  possible.  Yet  they  do  not 
affect  the  general  truthfulness  of  the  work,  render  any  doctrine 
doubtful,  or  do  more  than  disappoint  human  curiosity.  The  Bible 
is  translated  into  plain  old  Saxon  English.  There  are  words  used 
which  time  has  rendered  coarse.  Offenses  are  described  about 
which  people  do  not  talk  in  good  society.  They  are  never,  how- 
ever, described  to  gratify  prurient  desires  or  a  debased  taste,  but 
recorded  as  matters  of  fact  and  warning,  just  as  they  enter  into 
secular  history  or  mto  the  records  of  a  legal  tribunal.  The  existence 
of  such  facts  and  crimes  cannot  be  ignored.  We  all  know  of  them, 
and  a  book  which  guides  men's  conduct  must  notice  them.     If  there 


124  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

is  any  complaint  to  make  it  solely  relates  to  the  translation,  and  a 
modernized  one  is  now  in  preparation.  The  Bible  describes  the 
gross  misconduct  of  some  men,  whom,  on  the  whole,  it  pronounces 
good.  They  are  to  be  judged  by  the  standard  of  their  day,  not  of 
ours,  and  the  candor  of  the  statements  is  strong  proof  of  the  truth 
of  the  narrative.  If  the  Old  Testament  tells  what  was  done  by  the 
Patriarchs  or  Israelites,  it  does  not  necessarily  justify  their  acts, 
even  when  it  fails  to  reprobate  them.  The  deeds  are  often  suffered 
to  speak  for  themselves. 

Mr.  Graves  is  indignant  that  I  should  say  he  denounces  the  Bible, 
and  quotes  two  or  three  passages  from  his  volumes,  in  which  he  says 
the  Bible  contains  "much  that  is  beautiful  in  thought  and  expres- 
sion;" again,  that  "there  is  scarcely  a  book  or  even  a  chapter  in 
the  whole  Bible  that  does  not  evince  a  spirit  of  religious  devotion, 
and  an  effort  for  the  right;  and  the  prophets  often  breathed  forth  a 
spirit  of  the  most  elevated  poetry."  Still  further,  he  says,  "the 
Bible  is  a  very  useful  book  in  its  place,"  and  he  has  "  no  objection 
to  urge  against  the  Bible,  but  only  to  the  improper  use  to  which  it 
is  apphed."  This  is  all  very  well,  but  is  hardly  consistent  with 
other  and  much  more  forcibly  urged  declarations. 

In  his  list  of  the  Leading  Positions  of  his  "Bibles,"  he  ex- 
plains the  alleged  existence  of  several  thousand  errors  in  the  Chris- 
tian Bible,  by  saying  that  ' '  it  originated  at  a  period  when  the  moral 
and  religious  feelings  of  the  nation  which  produced  it  co-operated 
with  the  animal  propensities  instead   of  an    enlightened   intellect. 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  125 


Again,  he  says,  "  as  the  Christian  Bible  is  shown  in  this  work  to 
inculcate  bad  morals,  and  to  sanction,  apparendy,  every  species  of 
crime  prevalent  in  society  in  the  age  in  which  it  was  written,  the 
language  of  remonstrance  is  frequendy  employed  against  placing 
such  a  book  in  the  hands  of  the  heathen,  or  the  children  of  Chris- 
tian countries,  and  more  especially  against  making  the  Bible  the 
foundation  of  our  laws,  and  the  supreme  rule  of  our  conduct."  In 
the  body  of  the  work  these  ideas  are  developed  at  length. 

Two  hundred  alleged  instances  of  obscene  statements  in  the 
Bible  are  cited  in  figures ;  the  Jehovah  of  the  Bible  is  set  down  as 
an  angry,  malevolent  being,  unworthy  of  reverence.  The  mere 
reading  of  the  history  of  Moses,  it  is  held,  will  weaken  the  natural 
and  instinctive  love  of  honesty,  justice  and  morality,  unless  he  is 
strongly  fortified  by  nature  against  moral  corruption.  The  patriarchs 
and  prophets  are  handled  far  from  gendy.  Under  distinct  heads, 
we  are  told  that  the  Bible  sanctions  murder,  theft,  war,  intem- 
perance, slave-holding,  polygamy,  licentiousness,  wife-catching,  as- 
sassination, and  so  on. 

Finally,  to  sum  up,  though  I  have  not  nearly  exhausted  the 
catalogue  of  complaints,  Mr.  Graves  says,  "  we  see  not  how  to  es- 
cape the  conviction  that  the  Bible  has  inflicted,  and  must  necessa- 
rily inflict,  a  demoralizing  influence  on  society,  where  it  is  read 
and  believed.  It  is  morally  impossible  for  any  person  to  read  and 
believe  a  book  sanctioning,  or  appearing  to  sanction,  so  many 
species  of  crime  and  immorality  without  sustaining  more  or  less 


126  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

moral  and  mental  injury  by  it."  The  italics  are  Mr.  Graves's  .1 
will  leave  the  reader  to  decide  whether  he  is  a  practical  believer  in 
the  doctrine  that  consistency  is  the  vice  of  ignoble  minds,  or 
whether,  knowing  the  Bible  to  be  so  atrocious  a  book,  he  has  in 
two  or  three  places  highly  recommended  it. 

alleged  contradictions,  etc. 

It  would  be  amusing  were  it  not  sad  and  revolting  to  see  how 
every  verse  and  clause  is  twisted  and  tortured  to  make  out  a  con- 
tradiction or  an  absurdity.     I  will  give  a  few  specimens : 

''As  Eve  was  pronounced  'the  mother  of  all  living,'  when 
they  were  no  human  beings  in  existence,  but  she  and  Adam,  the  in- 
ference seems  to  be  that  she  was  the  mother  of  herself,  her  husband 
and  all  the  animal  tribes."  As  if  her  prospective  place  of  mother 
of  all  human  beings,  was  not  the  obvious  meaning.  An  impostor 
would  not  have  been  guilty  of  the  stupidity  which  Mr.  Graves  im- 
agines; an  idiot  could  not  have  written  the  narrative  in  which  it 
appears.  "  Methuselah's  time  was  not  out  till  ten  months  after  the 
flood  began,  according  to  Bible  chronology.  Where  was  he  dur- 
ing these  ten  months?"  As  if  the  book  of  Genesis  recorded  the 
month  of  the  great  antediluvian's  birth. 

There  are  no  end  of  ''  scientific"  objections  to  the  biblical  nar- 
ratives of  the  creation  and  deluge,  which  are  wonders  of  malignant 
absurdity.     Mr.   Graves  knows  as  much  of  natural  science  as  he 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  127 


does  of  Oriental  literature,  and  that  is  merely  to  seize  on  whatever 
he  thinks  will  tell,  caring  not  at  all  whether  it  be  true  or  false. 
Thus  he  finds  a  "  contradiction"  between  the  threat  to  Adam  that 
■in  the  day  thou  eatest  thereof  thou  shalt  die  and  his  subsequent  long 
life,  as  if  it  were  sure  that  the  "death"  threatened  meant  physical 
dissolution.  There  is  a  contradiction  between  the  sensible  pro- 
verbs that  advise  the  answering  of  a  fool  according  to  his  folly  on 
some  occasions  and  not  answering  him  on  others;  injunctions,  both 
of  which  are  constantly  put  in  practice  by  sensible  people.  There 
is  contradiction  between  the  different  uses  of  the  word  tempted,  in 
its  literal  sense  and  in  that  of  trial.  There  is  a  contradiction  be- 
tween Christ's  command  to  the  disciples  to  baptize  all  nations,  and 
Paul's  statement  that  his  special  duty  was  not  to  baptize  but  to 
preach. 

It  is  useless  to  multiply  the  citations  of  these  quibbles.  They 
reflect  no  credit  on  Mr.  Graves,  or  rather  on  the  pamphlet  from 
which  he  has  borrowed  most  or  all  of  them,  and  which,  as  I  have 
before  said,  has  been  thoroughly  exposed  and  answered  by  Mr. 
Haley.  I  have  given  enough  examples  to  show  the  precious  stuff 
of  which  the  ' '  Bible  of  Bibles"  is  composed. 


THE    MASSACRE    OF   THE    INNOCENTS. 

My  critic  does  not  like  my  computing  the   children  destroyed 
by  Herod,  at  a  dozen.     He  never  heard  of  such  a  small  number. 


128  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


Yet  the  tradition  reckoning  them  by  thousands,  is  a  senseless  legend 
of  the  Greek  church.  Bethlehem  was  a  small  village,  and  the 
number  of  male  cliildren  under  two  years,  not  four  as  Mr.  Graves 
has  it,  in  it  and  its  vicinity,  which  is  the  meaning  of  *'  coasts,"  obso- 
lete in  this  sense,  would  be  a  fair  number.  Let  Mr.  Graves  reckon 
from  some  little  Indiana  hamlet.  I  have  good  authority  for  this 
conclusion,  viz :  Smith's  Bible  Dictionary  unabridged  edition,  a 
very  scholarly  work.  Moreover,  I  have  that  which  may  suit  Mr. 
Graves  better,  the  testimony  of  the  American  Cyclopedia,  under  the 
title  Herod.    It  says: 

"The  event  (the  massacre)  is  recorded  only  by  one  evangelist  (Matthew 
ii,  iC),  and  being  confined  to  the  neighborhood  of  a  single  village,  may  natur» 
ally  have  passed  unnoticed  by  Josephus  amid  the  many  more  general  atroci- 
ties of  his  (Herod's)  government." 


CHRISTMAS. 

This  will  do  for  the  massacre  of  the  innocents.  As  for  the 
selection  of  the  twenty-fifth  of  December  as  Christmas  day,  it  is  of 
very  little  consequence  whether  the  actual  date  of  Christ's  birth  is 
taken  or  not,  since  the  fact  must  be  matter  of  speculation.  The 
church  did  not  agree  upon  the  matter  until  the  fourth  century.  Sir 
Isaac  Newton  held  the  opinion  that  the  winter  solstice  was  chosen 
because  most  of  the  feasts,  for  which  there  is  no  direct  New  Testa- 
ment authority,  were  originally  fixed  at  cardinal  points  of  the  year 
— as  other  feasts  had  been  before  them — and  that  the  first  Christian 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  129 

calendars  having  been  so  arranged  by  madiematicians  at  pleasure, 
without  any  ground  in  tradition,  the  Christians  afterwards  took  up 
what  they  found  in  the  calendars ;  so  long  as  a  fixed  time  of  com- 
memoration was  solemnly  appointed  they  were  content.  It  is  the 
spirit  of  the  commemoration,  not  chronological  exactness,  that  is 
important.  It  is  of  no  possible  consequence  whether  the  Mithraic 
festival  or  the  Roman  Saturnalia  coincided  in  time  or  not. 


SOME    BIG    AND    LITTLE    BLUNDERS. 

There  are  some  minor  topics  I  must  briefly  notice,  for  Mr, 
Graves  has  rampaged  over  the  whole  theological  and  historical 
field,  in  search  of  weapons  to  assail  me.  He  has  for  the  most  part 
picked  up  boomerangs  which  have  recoiled  on  himself.  For 
example,  he  says  he  knows  that  Apis  was  not  a  savior  properly  so- 
called,  for  he  learned  when  a  boy  that  Apis  was  the  Latin  for  a 
bull.  I  have  always  thought  that  Taurus  was  the  word,  while  Apis 
is  a  modification  of  Hapi,  or  the  hidden.  After  this  specimen  of 
Egyptological  lore  it  is  not  surprising  to  be  told  that  "most  of  the 
doctrines  of  Christ  and  the  whole  code  of  the  Jewish  theocracy  was 
taught "  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile.  I  do  not  know  whether  most  to 
admire  the  author's  information  or  grammar.     (See  Note.) 

Note. — In  this  letter  as  originally  published,  I  contented  myself  in  the  assertion  of  a  well 
known  fact.  Were  Mr.  Graves  right,  he  would  find  himself  in  the  dilemma  of  claiming 
that  the  religions  of  Egypt  and  India  were  identical,  since  he  maintains  that  they  are  both 
reproduced  in  Christianity.     Lest,  however,  I  may  seem  to  regard  my  own  authority  as 

17 


I-70  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


sufficient,  I  will  quote  from  James  Freemans  Clarke's  "Ten  Great  Religions,"  an 
interesting,  valuable,  and  rigidly  orthodox  work,  a  passage  which  concisely  sets  forth 
what  other  authorities  maintain  more  in  detail: 

"  Of  Egyptian  theology  proper,  on  the  doctrines  of  the  gods,  we  find  no  traces  in  the 
Pentateuch.  Instead  of  the  three  orders  of  deities  we  have  Jehovah  ;  instead  of  the  images 
and  pictures  of  the  gods  we  have  a  rigid  prohibition  of  idolatry;  instead  of  Osiris  and  Isis, 
we  have  a  Deity  above  all  worlds  and  behind  all  time,  with  no  history,  no  adventures,  no 
earthly  life.-'-  =:'•  His  (Moses')  severe  monotheism  was  very  different  from  the  minute 
characterization  of  Gods  in  the  Egyptian  Pantheon.  -  -  Nothing  of  the  popular  myth  of 
Osiris,  Isis,  Horus  and  Typhon  is  found  in  the  Pentateuch  ;  nothing  of  the  transmigration 
of  souls,  nothing  of  the  worship  of  animals,  nothing  of  the  future  life  and  judgment  to 
come,  nothing  of  the  embalming  of  the  bodies  and  ornamenting  of  tombs.  The  cherubini 
among  the  Jews  may  resemble  the  Egyptian  sphinx ;  the  priests'  dress  in  both  are  of 
white  linen;  the  urim  and  thummim,  symbolic  jewels  of  the  priests  are  in  both;  a  quasi 
hereditary  priesthood  is  in  each,  and  both  have  a  temple  worship.  But  here  the_  parallels 
cease.  Moses  left  behind  Egyptian  theology,  and  took  only  some  hints  for  his  ritual  from 
the  Nile.  There  may  perhaps  be  a  single  exception  to  this  statement.  According  to 
Bru^sch  and  other  writers,  the  papyrus  interred  with  the  mummy  contained  the 
doctrine  of  the  divine  unity.  The  name  of  God  was  not  given,  but  instead  the  words  Nuk 
Pu  Nuk—"  I  am  the  I  am."     If  this  be  so  the  coincidence  is  certainly  very  striking. 

To  this  we  may  add  that  the  discussion  was  equally  startling.  Moses  taught  God's 
unity  to  all,  while  monotheism  was  a  secret  doctrine  in  Egypt ;  the  grossest  idolatry  being 
permitted  and  even  encouraged  among  the  masses.  It  is  a  fact,  not  very  consoling  to  those 
who  hold  that  religion,  like  everything  else,  passes  by  evolution  from  lower  to  higher  forms, 
that  the  ancient  primitive  faith  of  Egypt,  like  that  of  Chaldea,  Phoenicia  and  Syria,  was 
monotheistic.  IM.  de  Rouge,  after  quoting  various  early  Egyptian  attestations  of  the  divine 
unity,  asks: 

"Were  these  noble  doctrines  the  product  of  ag^s?  Assured'r-y  not,  for  they  existed 
more  than  two  thousand  years  before  the  Christian  era.  On  the  contrary,  polytheism  of 
which  we  have  pointed  out  the  sources,  developed  and  progressed  without  interruption 
to  the  times  of  the  Ptolemies.  More  than  five  thousand  years  ago  the  hymns  to  the  unity 
of  God  originated  in  the  valley  of  the  Nile  -  -  and  we  see  in  the  later  period  Egypt 
sunk  in  the  most  frightful  polytheism." 

M.  Mariette  in  his  account  of  the  Museum  of  Boulac,  after  bearing  equally  strong 
witness  to  the  original  monotheism  of  the  Egyptians,  adds :  "But  Egypt  did  not  know  how 
to  remain  on  this  sublime  height."  While  Egypt  and  the  other  countries  with  which  the 
Jews  maintained  intercourse,  yielded  completely  to  the  idolatrious  spirit,  the  less  pohshed 
Israelites,  after  many  backslidings  finally  became  thoroughly  monotheistic.  Why  did  they 
succeed  where  their  more  refined  neighbors  failed  ?  Why,  we  may  further  say,  were  they 
the  only  nation  of  antiquity  to  conquer  the  tendency  to  polytheism  ?  The  answer  must  be 
found  in  the  system  they  were  taught,  not  in  any  moral  or  intellectual  virtue  of  their  own. 
We  may  add  that  Mr.  Graves  finally  discovers  that  Apis  is  the  Latin  for  bee,  and  not  lor 
bull,  but  this  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  Egyptian  divinity. 

Again  he  tells  us  that  "  the  history  of  Hadrian,  a  Roman  em- 
peror (who  was  born  76  A.  D.),  proves  that  the  name  of  Chrishna 
was  known  more  than  500  years  before  the  time  Bentley  assigns  for 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  131 

the  story."  As  Bentley's  date  was  A.  D.,  600,  it  would  make 
Krishna  a  contemporary  of  Hadrian,  and  so  post-christian.  But 
Mr.  Graves  confounds  Hadrian  with  the  historian  Arrian,  his  con- 
temporary, to  whose  mention  of  Alexander's  knowledge  of  an  In- 
dian hero  named  Krishna — not  the  incarnation — I  referred  in  my 
last  article.  I  have  not  yet  discovered  a  Bermuda  in  Burmah,  nor 
how  Ixion's  punishment  in  hell  could  be  the  crucifixion  of  a  savior^ 
and  do  not  object  to  the  printing  of  "Col."  for  Cardinal  being 
alleged  a  mistake  to  the  typographer.  The  ignorance  showed 
itself  in  the  declaration  that  "  Col."  or  Cardinal  Wiseman  was  ''ten 
years  a  missionary  in  India."  He  claims  to  have  discovered  in  his 
Cyclopedia  the  identity  of  Eros,  the  God  of  Love,  and  Esus  or 
Hesus,  the  warlike  divinity  of  the  Druids.  This  is  untrue.  The 
Cyclopedia  only  describes  Eros  as  the  Greek  eq[uivalent  of  the  Latin 
Cupid. 

As  for  Robert  Taylor,  I  did  not  affirm  that  he  "repented."  I 
am  afraid  he  never  did.  I  said  he  ''  recanted,"  and  he  did  this  at 
least  twice.  In  early  life,  after  deserting  the  pulpit,  and  finding  in- 
fidelity did  not  pay,  he  pubUshed  an  humble  confession  in  Latin  in 
the  London  Times,  which  his  own  brother  affirmed  was  inspired  by 
mercenary  considerations.  Later  he  was  known  as  the  "Devil's 
Preacher,"  and  later  still,  I  quote  from  recollection  a  brief  sketch, 
written,  I  think,  by  the  late  G.  Vale,  he  quarreled  with  Richard 
Carlile,  declined  to  be  called  reverend  any  longer,  and  after  marry- 
ing, became  a  physician.     The  account  referred  to,  says  he  died  in 


132  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

France  in  184S.  If  my  memory  does  not  fail  me  this  is  a  mistake^ 
for  1843,  ""^  which  year  Dodsley's  Annual  Register  records  his 
death.  I  was  told  on  high  authority  that  his  career  as  a  ''Chris- 
tian," which  he  claimed  to  be  after  his  marriage,  was  by  no  means 
creditable,  and  that  he  was  a  victim  of  intemperance. 

I  can  see  no  difficulty  in  reconciling  the  Pauline  statement  that 
Christ  was  seen  by  five  hundred  disciples  at  once,  with  that  of  Acts 
that  one  hundred  and  twenty  believers  were  gathered  about  the 
eleven  at  the  time  a  successor  to  Judas  was  elected.  If  Roman 
Catholic  missionaries  were  surprised  at  the  parallelism  of  their 
religious  uses  to  those  of  the  East  when  they  visited  it,  in  the  six- 
teenth and  seventeenth  centuries,  this  does  not  involve  the  fact  that 
those  similarities  had  existed  for  countless  ages.  The  Nestorians  sent 
priests  all  through  India  and  China  before  the  seventh  century  of 
the  Christian  era.  As  for  the  spelling  of  Eastern  words,  there  are 
various  systems,  to  no  one  of  which  I  have  rigidly  adhered.  I 
only  object  to  the  attempt  to  make  capital  for  a  theory  by  approx- 
imating the  word  Krishna  to  Christ. 

I  believe  I  have  now  noticed  not  only  the  main  features  of  Mr- 
Graves's  paper  but  his  most  trifling  quibbles  ;  with  the  exception  of 
allegation  that  a  crucifix  fastened  to  an  Irish  round  tower  is  of 
Oriental  origin,  solely  because  there  are  two  animals  at  its  feet,  one 
supposed  to  be  a  sheep,  the  other  an  elephant.  I  have  the  picture, 
but  the  elephant  is  not  there,  It  is  a  nondescript  beast,  most  like 
a  tapir,  but  really  to  be  certainly  identified  with  no  living  thing.     I 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  133 


should  decide   there  was  perhaps  more  artistic  stupidity  than  Ori- 
ental influence  here. 


CONCLUSION. 

I  must  now  leave  Mr.  Graves  and  his  books.  I  have  not 
quoted  the  ribaldry  the  latter  contain  respecting  the  incarnation 
and  other  subjects  deemed  specially  sacred  by  Christians,  nor  have 
I  examined  the  ''criticisms"  of  the  Scriptures  with  elaborate  minute- 
ness." The  task  would  be  endless,  for  the  volumes  are  tissues  of 
misrepresentations  from  beginning  to  end;  sometimes  stupid,  and 
always  bitter.  Many,  I  might  say  most,  are  so  weak  that  they 
refute  themselves  and  there  are  none  which  cannot  be  found 
answered  in  works  accessible  to  nearly  all.  My  purpose  has  been 
to  strike  deeper;  I  have  destroyed  the  foundation  on  which  the 
pretentious  superstructure  has  been  erected 

I  have  shown  that  all  the  "coincidences,"  save  those  which  the 
■constitution  of  the  human  mind  makes  a  part  of  all  religions,  are 
post-Christian;  and  that  there  has  been  no  borrowing  or  imposition 
on  the  part  of  the  church.  I  have  shown  also  that  Mr.  Graves  is 
incompetent  to  decide  between  authorities,  and  blundering  and  dis- 
honest in  those  he  uses.  He  may  be  a  good  neighbor  and  an 
honest  man  in  his  daily  walk.  He  declares  himself  such,  and  I 
have  no  reason  to  disbelieve  him.  But  he  is  the  exact  reverse  in 
controversey.     He  is  mentally  and  morally  jaundiced.     I  do  not 


134  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

wish  to  be  severe  or  use  rough  words.  Yet,  if  a  quack,  who  should 
kill  people  by  the  reckless  administration  of  drugs,  of  whose  nature 
he  is  uninformed,  should  be  held  to  strict  account,  is  not  a  man 
culpable  who  endeavors  to  settle  questions  that  concern  man's  im- 
mortal destiny  while  ignorant  of  the  evidences  of  the  doctrines  he 
pretends  to  teach  ?  I  have  no  right  to  call  in  question  Mr.  Graves's 
sincerity,  yet  I  trust  I  have  convinced  him  that  he  had  better  study 
other  books  than  those  of  Higgins  and  Taylor,  before  publishing 
more  volumes,  and  that  those  already  in  print,  need  much  in  the 
way  of  excision  and  modification.  If  he  will  study  with  a  desire  to 
learn  the  truth,  not  to  make  an  argument,  he  may  get  new  light, 
and  change  his  position,  much  to  his  good.  This  I  sincerely  hope 
he  may  do. 

J.    T.    P. 
Cincinnati,   February  22,  1879. 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  135 


POSTSCRIPT. 


Where  there  are  two  legitimate  ways  of  reaching  the  same 
end,  it  often  happens  that  neither  has  a  monopoly  of  advantages. 
By  reproducing  my  letters  on  Mr.  Graves's  works  essentially  as  they 
were  first  puWished,  I  have  escaped  the  possible  dullness  of  ab- 
stract disquisition.  Moreover,  by  leaving  him  to  be  his  own  advo- 
cate, I  have  avoided  the  imputation  of  misrepresenting  him.  On 
the  other  hand,  I  have  sacrificed  the  unity  which  a  recasting  would 
have  assured,  and  have  not  supplied  the  accumulations  of  evidence, 
omitted  through  regard  for  the  limits  of  a  newspaper' s  space.  Some 
of  the  authorities  not  cited  are  valuable,  if  not  absolutely  es- 
sential. A  controversialist  on  paper,  like  a  soldier  on  the  field, 
likes  to  find  himself  thoroughly  supported.  It  is  specially  pleasant 
to  be  helped  from  the  other  side. 

Thus  an  admission  by  M.  D.  Conway,  a  man  who  discovers 
the  traces  of  Oriental  influences  where  few  others  can  perceive 
them,  has  a  peculiar  interest.  In  replying  to  a  criticism  of  his 
lecture  on  *'  Oriental  Religions,"  which  appeared  in  the  Cincinnati 
Gazette  oi  October  22,  1875,  ^^^  explains  his  silence  regarding  the 
alleged  parallelisms  between  Krishna  and  Christ  by  saying  that  he 


136  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

did  not  consider  them  "  of  much  if  any  importance  in  comparative 
mythology/'  Even  Mr.  Graves  in  a  moment  of  apparent  forget- 
fulness,  confesses  that  ''the  Vedas  don't  say  a  word  about  this  god" 
(Krishna)  which  is  a  long  step  toward  acknowledging  what  I  have 
claimed. 

It  is  also  deserving  of  notice  that  Professor  Whitney,  of  Yale 
College,  who  stands  at  the  head  of  American  Orientalists,  and  is 
eminent  the  world  over,  while  holding  Mr.  Bentley's  astronomical 
processes  in  no  respect,  agrees  with  his  general  results,  and  utterly 
repudiates  the  theories  upon  which  Mr.  Higgins  has  established  his 
system  of  cycles  and  incarnations.  He  says  that  "  the  clear  light 
of  modern  investigation  has  forever  dispelled  the  wild  dreams  of 
men  Hke  Bailly,  who  could  believe  India  to  have  been  the  primi- 
tive home  of  human  knowledge  and  culture."     He  adds: 

"  It  has  been  declared  by  Weber,  the  most  competent  of  Indian  scholars 
to  pronounce  upon  such  a  point,  and  without  contradiction  from  any  quarter, 
that  no  mention  even  of  the  lesser  planets,  is  to  be  found  in  Hindu  litera- 
ture until  the  modern  epoch,  after  the  influence  of  foreign  astronomical  science 
began  to  be  felt.  If,  then,  we  find  such  a  science  making  its  sudden  appear- 
ance in  India  at  so  late  a  period,  we  cannot  help  turning  our  eyes  abroad  to 
see  whence  it  should  have  come.  Nor  can  we  long  remain  doubtful  as  to 
where  it  originated." 

Having  awarded  Colebrooke  the  credit  of  first  suggesting  the 
idea,  Professor  Whitney  shows  that  there  are  not  only  Western  ideas 
but  Greek  words  in  the  very  centre  and  citadel  of  the  Hindu 
science.  Even  the  Surya  Siddhanta,  or  Siddhanta  of  the  Sun,  re- 
vealed by  that  luminary  to  a  demi-god,  and  ages  ago  handed  down 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  137 

to  man  as  an  inestimable  astronomical  boon,  purports  in  some  manu- 
uscripts  to  have  had  the  Romaka  City,  or  Rome,  for  its  place  of 
** materialization."  Professor  Whitney  coincides  with  Mr.  Burgess, 
who  shared  with  him  the  work  of  translating  the  famous  treatise, 
in  declaring  the  Surya  markedly  post-Christian,  fixing  on  the  date 
of  572  as  most  probable.  He  enforces  his  conclusions  by  solid 
arguments,  for  which  we  have  no  room.  They  may  be  found  in 
detail  in  his  paper  on  the  Lunar  Zodiac  in  the  second  series  of  his 
Oriental  and  Linguistic  Studies. 

Buddha  has  of  late  been  an  object  of  so  much  interest  to 
thoughtful  persons  on  account  of  the  healthful  look  of  many  of  his 
precepts,  in  spite  of  their  wretched  atheistical  back-ground,  that  I 
ought,  perhaps,  to  have  considered  his  history  more  at  length  in  my 
letters.  I  was  writing  for  Mr.  Graves,  however,  and  so  only  aimed 
to  controvert  the  claim  that  Buddha's  supernatural  birth  was  the 
prototype  of  that  of  Christ.  This  has  been  urged  by  others  than 
my  late  opponent,  as  a  support  to  the  theory  that  the  opening 
chapters  of  Matthew  and  the  Buddhi3tic  traditions  are  only  different 
versions  of  the  same  legend.  I  may  repeat,  therefore,  the  statement 
that  there  is  no  positive  proof  of  the  exact  correspondence  of  the 
existing  Buddhistic  writings  with  their  alleged  originals.  Further, 
we  know  that  there  are  two  sets,  the  northern  and  southern,  the 
one  more  extravagant  than  the  other ;  and  that  those  we  have  are 
often  confessedly  translations  and  revisions.  Max  Mueller  argues 
indeed,  the  probability  that  many  of  the  works,  dating  in  their 
18 


138  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


present  form  no  further  back  than  the  fifth  century  of  the  Christian 
era,  are  faithful  reproductions  of  the  primitive  versions  or  of  those 
accepted  as  canonical  at  the  great  council,  held  about  midway  be- 
tween the  death  of  Buddha  and  the  birth  of  Christ.  This  conclu- 
sion is  not  universally  accepted,  and  is  likely  to  be  true  only  in 
part.  Buddha's  sayings  may  have  been  transmitted  with  only  slight 
modification,  but  five  hundred  years  afford  ample  time  for  the 
growth  of  personal  legend. 

Mr.  Beale,  translator  of  a  curious  life  of  Buddha  from  the 
Chinese,  admits  that  all  is  dark  and  confused  in  Buddhistic  chro- 
nology before  the  fifth  Christian  century.  The  Chinese  work  is 
itself  a  translation,  and  was  made  from  a  revised  edition  of  its 
original — as  Mr.  Beale  infers,  two  or  three  hundred  years  after  the 
latter's  first  appearance,  possibly  before,  possibly  after  the  Christian 
era.  This  makes  a  pretty  fragile  and  many-linked  chain  of  guess- 
work rather  than  evidence.  The  book  furnishes  some  curious 
coincidences,  but  many  more  glaring  discrepancies  between  the 
story  of  Buddha  and  the  gospel  narrative.  If  Buddha,  like  Christ, 
was  born  of  a  virgin,  his  mother,  Maia,  died  seven  days  after  the 
birth  of  her  child.  She  was  transparent  during  her  pregnancy; 
was  a  princess,  not  a  maid  in  humble  life.  She  lavished  splendid 
gifts,  and  had  been  to  a  grand  entertainment  just  previous  to  the 
journey  during  which  she  gave  birth  to  a  son,  in  a  garden  not  in  a 
stable.  In  the  life  of  Buddha  there  is  little  that  corresponds  with 
that  of  Christ,  except  his  going  about  and  preaching.  There  is  a. 
closer  parallel  between  his  asceticism  and  that  of  John  the  Baptist. 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  139' 

He  died  a  natural  death,    at  an  advanced  age,  while  Christ  was 
crucified  before  reaching  thirty-five  years. 

When  we  compare  the  style  of  the  Buddhistic  narrative  with  that 
of  the  Evangelists,  the  contrast  becomes  still  more  marked.  That 
of  the  former  reminds  one  forcibly  of  the'  apocryphal  gospels  with 
Oriental  embellishments.  There  is  in  more  than  one  point,  a 
near  relationship  of  incident,  and  a  decided  affinity  throughout. 
We  know  from  the  church  fathers  of  the  fourth  century,  who  had 
heard  of  Buddha,  and  were  not  startled  by  any  of  the  claims  made 
for  him,  that  Christianity  had  been  diffused  through  India  two 
centuries  or  more  earlier.  There  is  even  reason  for  believing  that 
it  had  very  numerous  professors  all  over  the  peninsula  down  to  the 
fifth  century.  This  was  the  very  period  when  Buddhism  had  cul- 
minated there,  only  to  be  overpowered,  a  few  centuries  later  by  the 
Vishnuite  sects,  as  the  latter  undeniably  borrowed  New  Testament 
honors  for  Krishna,  so  the  former  would  not  be  content  that  the 
Western  missionaries  should  boast  divine  honors  for  their  master 
which  Buddha  did  not  possess.  If  there  were  any  appropriations, 
it  is  obvious  that  the. Buddhists  were  the  borrowers.  There  is  no- 
thing in  pure  Buddhism  that  requires  a  supernaturally  born  child. 
The  Old  Testament,  on  the  contrary,  whether  regarded  as  inspired 
or  not,  contains  predictions  of  the  advent  of  such  a  being,  and  the 
Christian  faith  largely  rests  upon  these  prophecies.  The  super- 
natural forms,  the  natural  garb  of  the  Jewish  Messiah,  while  the 
phenomena  of  Buddha's  birth  hang  round  him  like  borrowed 
feathers,  and  such  they  undoubtedly  are. 


140  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 

Were  we  even  to  admit,  what  cannot  be  proved,  that  traces  of 
these  legends  are  to  be  found  in  pre-Christian  Buddhistic  treatises,  it 
would  be  more  natural  to  suppose  that  the  words  of  Isaiah  had 
reached  India — as  they  seem  to  have  reached  Persia — at  this  early 
date,  than  that  the  same  specific  ideas  should  have  risen  in  two  in- 
dependent localities.  This'remark  applies,  of  course,  only  to  pre- 
dictions of  a  supernatural  birth,  not  to  all  the  events  accompanying 
it.  I  have  shown  the  possibility  of  borrowing  on  the  part  of  the 
Buddhists,  the  lack  of  evidence  of  any  early  native  origins  for  their 
legends,  and  the  improbability  that  Jewish  Christians  should  go  to 
India  for  conceptions  which  the  sacred  books  of  their  own  land 
supplied.  The  case  appears  plain,  though  it  is  the  universal  fashion 
of  skeptics  to  make  the  Bible  the  debtor  when  there  is  any  coinci- 
dence between  its  statements  and  the  Ethnic  traditions.  Granting 
that  it  is  merely  a  human  composition,  is  its  originality  not  entitled 
to  the  same  presumption  as  that  of  writings,  certainly  its  inferior 
in  literary  merit  ? 

Thus  much  for  Buddha;  I  should  like  to  quote  from  Whitney 
additional  testimony  respecting  the  late  origin  of  the  Zend  Avesta 
as  we  have  it,  but  it  would  merely  confirm  what  I  have  cited  from 
Hardwick. 

I  have  made  it  evident,  as  far  as  Mr.  Graves  and  others  of  his 
school  are  concerned,  that  however  gross  and  multiplied  ''pious 
frauds  "  may  be,  impious  ones  far  exceed  them  in  number  and  de- 
cree.    When  Robert  Taylor,  for   example,  professes  to  give  all  the 


The  Gospels  not  Brahmanic.  141 

historical  corroborations  of  the  New  Testament,  he  artfully  begins 
by  quoting  wild  mediaeval  legends  and  fabrications,  putting 
Tacitus  and  other  early  witnesses  into  the  obscurest  corner  and  dis- 
crediting them  when  he  has  placed  them  there.  Such  dishonesty 
recoils  on  the  man  who  practices  it.  Mr.  Graves  is  guilty  of  some- 
thing of  the  same  kind,  though  in  a  case  of  less  importance,  where 
he  cites  a  religious  paper's  praise  of  ''those  so-called  infidels," 
the  early  abolitionists,  as  an  indorsement  of  the  self-denial  and 
virtues  of  skeptics  generally. 

These  skeptical  cavilers  are  so  lynx-eyed  also  for  flaws  in  the 
sacred  history  tliat  they  often  fall  into  one  pit  while  digging  another. 
Thus  M.  Soury,  a  prominent  French  rationalist,  while  attempting 
to  prove  the  story  of  Joseph  in  Egypt,  to  be  largely  a  romance,  in 
referring  to  the  seizure  of  his  coat  by  Potiphar's  wife,  thoughdessly 
remarks  that  this  was  doubtless  the  one  of  many  colors,  which 
Jacob  had  given  him.  M.  Soury  forgot  that  the  garment  had  been  torn 
in  pieces  and  dipped  in  blood  by  the  brethren  who  sold  its  wearer 
into  slavery.  This  stupidity  of  a  man  who  professed  to  have  studied 
Genesis  from  a  highly  philosophical  standpoint,  is  amusingly  ex- 
posed by  his  able  reviewer  Father  Vigouroux.  Mr.  Graves  has 
blundered  as  absurdly,  and  often  less  innocently,  and  the  same  is 
true  of  far  abler  champions  of  the  destructive  school.  Their  great- 
est mistake  however,  is  their  belief  that  they  have  made  a  clear 
path  for  themselves.  Granting  that  they  have  overcome  some  dif- 
ficulties, they  have  raised  still  more  formidable  ones. 


142  Sixteen  Saviours  or  One. 


Conceding  that  they  have  identified  Christ  with  the  heathen 
divinities— what  then  ?  The  historical  affiHations  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments  became  unaccountable,  and  the  total  difference  in 
the  outcome  of  Christianity  and  its  kindred  systems  is  equally 
beyond  explanation.  I  am  writing  for  thoughtful  men  of  ordinary 
acquirements,  not  for  scholars,  to  whom  my  plainness  and  minute- 
ness may  seem  unnecessary  and  tedious,  and  may  therefore  be  ex- 
cused for  repeating  what  many  Jiave  said  before  me,  viz :  That 
there  is  no  one  hypothesis  which  will  account  for  all  the  data  of  the 
New  Testament  history,  except  that  which  assumes  the  credibility 
of  its  authors. 

Neither  myth  nor  tendency  can  overcome  the  testimony  of  the 
undisputedly  genuine  Pauline  epistles;  enthusiasm  and  imposture 
are  equally  unsatisfactory,  and  a  combination  of  any  two  or  three 
of  these,  is  like  the  mixing  of  an  acid  with  an  alkali.  When  the 
critics  have  done  their  best  or  worst  to  discredit  the  documents, 
there  still  remains,  as  Mill  has  said,  the  conception  of  the  man 
Christ  Jesus,  the  like  of  which  could  never  have  entered  the  im- 
agination of  Jew,  Greek,  or  Roman, 

J.  T.   P. 


Appendix.  143 


APPENDIX. 


The  notice  taken  by  Mr.  Graves  of  the  foUowmg  letters  to  the 
-editor  of  the  Telegram  seem  to  justify  their  insertion  here.  The 
communication  of  Prof.  Swing,  deserves  reproduction  on  its  own 
merits. 

A  CARD  FROM  PROF.  SWING. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Richmond  Telegram  : 

Your  number  of  the  6th  instant,  contains  such  a  long  and  care- 
ful analysis  of  Mr.  Graves'  book,  entitled  ''The  Sixteen  Crucified 
Saviors,"  that  I  wish  to  thank  not  only  the  writer  of  such  an  article, 
but  also  the  editor  who,  in  these  days  of  '■•wicked  editors,''  was 
willing  to  give  so  many  columns  to  an  essay  indirectly  upon  the 
merits  of  the  Founder  of  the  Christian  religion.  The  essay  has  so 
gratified  my  heart  that  I  feel  much  like  asking  you  to  admit  one 
word  more  into  your  paper ;  for  speech  causes  more  speech. 

J.  T.  P.  tempered  his  review  with  mercy,  for  after  having  shown 
that  Mr.  Graves  had  made  up  a  poor  collection  of  saviors,  and 
might  as  well  have  assembled  a  hundred  as    to   have    found  and 


144  Appendix. 


labeled  only  sixteen,  the  gifted  writer  might  have  contended  that  if 
the  man  of  Nazareth  were  the  sixteenth  of  a  group  or  the  six 
hundredth,  that  would  only  show  how  anxious  man  every  where  has 
been,  in  all  times,  to  find  some  one  who  could  come  able  and 
willing  to  lead  the  heart  up  out  of  the  vale  of  sorrow.  The  logical 
deduction  from  Mr.  Graves'  premises  is  not  that  Christ  was  a  pre- 
tender, but  that  man  will  always  seek  a  great  deliverer  so  long  as  he 
may  think  that  no  adequate  one  has  come.  The  ''  Sixteen  Saviors'' 
would  be  only  sixteen  forms  which  the  longing  to  escape  from  sin 
and  sorrow  and  death  has  assumed  up  to  this  date  of  human 
misfortune.  Could  Mr.  Graves  penetrate  to  the  interior  of  Africa, 
he  would  find  negro  tribes  looking  back  or  forward  to  one  of  these 
mighty  ones,  and  should  he  pass  a  summer  with  the  Indians  of 
Lake  Superior,  he  would  there  learn  that  those  children  of  the 
woods  are  expecting  a  chief  to  come  who  shall  make  the  Indian 
return  in  triumph  to  displace  the  English  and  the  French. 

When  Mr.  Graves  has  found  his  score  of  "Saviors,"  he  has  not  yet 
come  anywhere  near  the  conclusion  he  announces ;  but,  on  the 
opposite,  he  has  only  shown  how  the  human  family  has  always  felt  the 
need  of  some  one  who  might  become  a  connecting  link  between 
this  life  and  a  better  one ;  but  of  the  question  whether  man  has 
found  that  link,  or  will  soon  find  it,  he  does  not  so  much  as  touch 
the  outermost  margin.  It  might  be  a  pleasant  task,  or  at  least  a 
long  and  interesting  task,  should  Mr.  Graves  follow  the  Hebrew 
race  alone,  and  mark  how  many  deliverers  that  people  thought  they 


Appendix.  145 


saw  in  the  centuries  after  Isaiah,  but  if,  after  such  a  study,  he 
should  come  to  us  with  the  conclusion  that  because  of  many  errors 
in  such  vision,  therefore,  the  Hebrews  never  at  last  gave  birth  to 
any  divine  leader,  we  should  be  compelled  to  assure  him  that  he 
was  guilty  of  a  non  seqiiitur.  A  child  that  has  become  separated  from 
its  mother  in  a  London  street  will  see  that  mother  in  a  hundred 
women,  now  here  and  now  there,  and  will  run  toward  now  this  one 
and  now  that,  with  new  assurance  and  new  joy,  but  the  cold  looker- 
on  must  not,  after  witnessing  a  few  mistakes  of  the  child,  come  to 
us  with  the  conclusion  that  the  child  had  no  mother  in  the  outset. 
After  the  litde  crying  one  had  blundered  over  ''sixteen  mothers," 
the  question  would  remain  untouched  as  to  where  the  real  parent 
might  be  concealed.  "J-  T.  P."  having  made  havoc  of  Mr. 
Graves's  data,  might  thus  make  equal  havoc  of  his  conclusion. 

The  Christian  confesses  that  the  whole  human  race  has  been 
perfectly  swept  over  by  a  perpetual  wave  of  opinions  and  beliefs 
about  a  God ;  that  in  this  tumult  all  shapes,  moral  and  physical,  of 
a  Deity  have  been  elaborated;  but  logic  cannot  deduce  from  these 
"  Sixteen  Gods,"  or  sixteen  million  gods,  the  conclusion  that  the 
universe  did  not  come  from  an  intelligent  Creator.  In  a  similar 
manner  the  human  race  has  been  swept  all  over,  in  both  space  and 
time,  by  hopes  and  even  visions  of  a  deliverer;  and,  as  out  of 
many  false  images  of  a  god,  there  came,  at  last,  not  atheism  but  a 
more  true  Father  in  Heaven.  So  up  from  a  hundred  dreams  and 
embodiments  of  a  Messiah,  there  may  have  come  at  last,  and  in 
19 


146  Appendix. 


Belhelem,  a  true  Messenger  from  a  higher  rcahn.  The  book  of 
Mr.  Graves  will  show  only  how  often  human  love  and  imagination 
will  perceive  a  hero  of  liberty  long  before  the  real  one  comes ;  will 
find  outlines  of  a  Deity  before  they  can  give  much  of  a  definition 
of  the  Jehovah ;  and  will  show  how  an  unhappy  and  mortal  race 
passing  in  tears  to  a  grave  will  often  think  it  has  found  a  friend  and 
be  often  disappointed.  But  upon  the  question  whether  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  was,  at  last,  this  divine  Friend,  the  volume  contains  no 
argument  which  need  disturb  for  an  instant  the  belief  of  the 
Christian.  Yours,     David  Swing. 

Chicago,  Feb.  10,  1879. 

A  CARD  FROM   HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 
To  the  Editor  of  the  Richmond  Telegram  : 

The  paper  containing  your  reply  to  several  skeptical  works 
came  duly,  and  I  read  the  matter  with  great  interest,  thinking  all 
.  the  while  it  ought  to  be  published  and  circulated  as  a  tract,  or,  thin 
book.  It  might,  should  that  be  done,  be  made  a  little  fuller  on  some 
points,  that  men  who  have  not  seen  the  books  replied  to,  might  have 
the  statements  more  fully  set  forth,  before  you  reply. 

I  hope  that  Providence  may  direct  you  to  a  continuous  work  in 
this  direction,  for  which  you  seem  eminently  fitted.      I  am  ,dear  sir, 

Very  truly,  yours, 

Henry  Ward  Beecher. 
Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,   Feb.  10,  '79. 

.  THE  end. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


Page. 

I.     Introduction — Infidelity  among  the  masses 5 


II.  Letter  to  Mr.  Graves — The  Krishna  legend  post-Christian 

in  its  perfected  form  and  in  its  coincidence  with  the 
Gospel  Narrative — Hindoo  astronomy  recent  and  bor- 
rowed from  abroad — Buddha  historical,  and  not  super- 
natural—The Zend  Avesta — Mr.  Graves's  errors  in 
mythology  and  philology 1 1 

III.  Mr.   Graves's  Reply    and    subsequent    modifications    and 

corrections, i ^(5 

IV.  Rejoinder  to    Mr.    Graves. — The   positions  of  the   first 

letter  reaffirmed — Fresh  blunders  of  Mr.  Graves  in  his 
defense  exposed,  and  his  discreditable  treatment  of  the 
Bible  set  forth 105 

V.  Postscript — Additional  constructions  of  the  letters — Appen- 

dix— Views  of  Prof.  Swing  and  the  Rev,   Henry  Ward 

Beecher 135 


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